


The Sparkling Diamond of the Moulin Rouge

by intothesilentland



Category: Moulin Rouge! (2001), Supernatural
Genre: (I own nothing), Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - Moulin Rouge! Fusion, Alternate Universe 1900s, F/F, Fem!Castiel, Female Castiel, Female Castiel/Female Dean Winchester, Female Dean Winchester, Female Protagonist, Female-Centric, Femslash, Genderbend, Moulin Rouge AU, POV Female Character, Warnings May Change, blatant quoting of Moulin Rouge, fem!dean, fem!destiel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-05
Updated: 2016-10-24
Packaged: 2018-08-13 06:23:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7965949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intothesilentland/pseuds/intothesilentland
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the cusp of the 20th century, the young poet Castielle moves to Paris in search of artistic inspiration - preferably in the form of true love. Plunged unexpectedly into the heady world of the Moulin Rouge, she begins a passionate love affair with the club's most notorious and beautiful star, 'The Sparkling Diamond' - or, as she becomes known by Castielle, Deanna Winchester. </p><p>At first enjoyable, the pair's attempts to keep their love secret become more and more ambitious; and as such more and more impossible. First desire, then passion, then love, then suspicion, jealousy, anger, betrayal; Castiel finds that when love is for the highest bidder, there can be no trust, and without trust, there is no love. So how could there be love at the Moulin Rouge?</p><p>A story about a time, a story about a place. A story about the people, but most of all, a story about love. A love that will live forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. There Was a Girl

**Author's Note:**

> I've wanted to write an f/f fic for so long, and have had this one in mind (or one of this sort in mind) for so long, and I finally decided to actually write and post it (about time). I really hope you all enjoy it! 
> 
> For content warning, there will obviously be major character death, and all the other things included in the actual film of the Moulin Rouge. So that's prostitution/sex work, attempted rape, and so on. As I write it, I will obviously add more.
> 
> For updates on how writing the story is going/any questions (and anyone wanting to beta read it!) follow my tumblr ( http://ginnystiel.tumblr.com )
> 
> Other than that, I hope you all enjoy!

"So," The actress sighs, "you asked for a love story." A look of grim resolution has set across her face. Her petite hands are clasped together, rubbing at each other with something close to nervousness at irregular intervals. She glances at her lover stood in the corner of the room, taller than her by at least a head, and around ten years her junior. The younger woman—she could be no older than twenty five—shrugs and looks away. She leans against the wall, facing the group. The actress's gaze continues to press at the younger girl, and it becomes abundantly clear that she is asking a question. As seems natural on the tall, young woman, her expression is one of a most sombre nature. She stares hard, eyes melancholic, back at the actress, thin lips pressed together, and nods once.

Then a tear slips down her face.

The actress nods once in response—the gesture soft, understanding—and turns back to the group. "And a love story you shall get." She promises. Something in her voice is grim.

“What kind of love story?” One of the younger, prettier things asks—apparently the tone of the room has not quite caught up with her; she rests her chin on her balled fist, smiling as those who are blissfully unaware of something quite terrible do, and her eyes are alight with a spark that is not quite present in most of the other eyes in the room.

“A love story…” The actress frowns, something distant growing in her expression. She no longer looks at the group huddled before her, cross-legged on the floor, lying lazily across chaise longues, limbs all tangled together. Her eyes graze over to the open window, to where The Elephant used to stand, ornate and enormous and utterly obscene. She presses her lips together, apparently quite forgetting the young courtesan’s question. “Samantha, do you have the papers?” She asks, eyes not moving from the point in the near distance they seem to rest upon. Some of the girls turn around, frowning, to see what it is the actress is looking at, and an air of confusion begins to glimmer through the group.

Sam nods and makes her way out the room, pushing back her long, deep brown hair. The actress turns back to the girl who asked the question, something beyond mere disenchantment growing in her weary features.

“You will learn.” She says, staring straight at the courtesan. “The Moulin Rouge is not a place where love can grow and thrive the way it would on any other of the streets of Paris. You came here young and full of hope.” Samantha returns with the papers the actress had spoken of. She slides them onto the older woman’s lap, and returns to her place in the corner of the room. “You are young.” The actress says, hardly noticing. “You will learn.”

“Then what is this story about, Gabrielle?” One of the other girls asks, French accent making all her words sound beautiful and delicate and mystical. Gabrielle looks at the girl sadly. Such a pretty thing, with big dark eyes and ebony hair caught in loose waves. She would prove popular in here. Not a good thing.

Coming to the Moulin Rouge was not a good thing. Only a necessary thing when money was scarce.

“There was a girl,” Gabrielle starts softly. She looks at the girl who asked the question, but her eyes do not focus; she seems to look at a point beyond or inside the little dancer. “A very strange, enchanted girl.”

Silence has settled across the gathering. It almost seems to bubble with anticipation. Everyone grows very still. Gabrielle’s voice, normally echoing and vibrant and comic, has turned soft, now sounds quite like music.

“They say she travelled very far…” Gabrielle swallows. She looks away from the dancing girl, no older than fifteen summers. “Very far.” She glances at Samantha again, who stares at the ground, lips painted dark with rouge, trembling. “…A little shy…” She looks back out the window to where The Elephant used to be. The sound of a preacher shouting in the street below them echoes through the courtyard and into the room.

 _“Turn away from this village of sin,”_ Come the Priest’s familiar cries, _“for it’s a veritable Sodom and Gomorrah!”_

His voice is stern, but Gabrielle knows how Crowley sends three of their lithest male courtesans to the Sainte-Chapelle every Tuesday after sundown.

“…And sad of eye,” Gabrielle continues, just as the group begins to grow distracted by the Not-So-Holy-Man’s preaching. “But very wise was she…”

The group watches Gabrielle with bated breath. She has always had a knack for storytelling—at least to a large group of people. It used to be something she would boast of. She looks down at the first page of the manuscript, _1900_ printed across it in large, spidery letters.

Ten years. It has been ten years, and yet all who had known her felt the beating loss of a broken heart for The Sparkling Diamond every day.

Eyes burning, Gabrielle turns the page.

“And then one day,” She looks down, swallowing back her tears. The courtesans and dancers here ought to hear this story before it is forgotten; before they fill _their_ heads with ridiculous ideas of love and beauty and hope. Samantha and Gabrielle have lasted as long as they have because they long ago accepted the truth; because the pain of what they both lost had bound them so tightly together that no amount of jealousy for the men who bedded Samantha every night could drive Gabrielle away. “A magic day, she passed my way.” Gabrielle decides her words, almost laughing. When she closes her eyes, she can see Cassie’s fingers working away at her typewriter, can hear its clicking, can smell the ink and paper. She smoothes her hands over the manuscript. She breathes deeply. She remembers how strange and alien Castielle’s name had sounded in her ears the first time she had heard it; how she had soon come to realise that nothing else in the world would suit her quite as well. “And while we spoke of many things—of fools and kings—”

Gabrielle thinks of how rare Cassie’s smiles were. Of her bright blue eyes framed by a serious set of dark eyelashes and eyebrows. She thinks of Cassie’s ridiculous coat that she always used to wear; the one which stretched down to her ankles, the one which she always turned the collar up on to shield her against the harsh Parisian winter winds. She thinks of the light that once lit up Cassie’s eyes despite all of this, despite her serious, bewildered demeanor, despite the intensity of her gaze. She thinks of how this light left, and is now long gone. She wonders if Cassie ever found it in her to love again.

Ten years. It hardly seemed enough.

“This she said to me,” Gabrielle coughs once into her closed fist. Her voice trembles on the edge of delicacy and tears. She looks down at the open manuscript. She almost laughs, love and warmth flushing through her. She almost cries. She reads the first sentence of the page aloud, thinking of how when she had first heard these words, they seemed like the wisest thing the world had to offer. “The greatest thing,” She starts, staring at the rounded, awkward letters of the sentence, tapped out by Castielle’s typewriter, “you’ll ever learn,” She thinks of how oddly providential it is that this should be the first sentence Cassie thought to write; and the sentiment with which Gabrielle had chosen to introduce the love story, “is just to love.” She beams through her tears, looking up from the page. “And be loved, in return.”

The group sits back, their pretty lips parted. For the first time in several minutes, they seem to inhale again.

Gabrielle looks back down at the manuscript. At Cassie’s writing, at her first story. It is stained with tears. She wonders if the strange girl with messy dark hair and a head for words and beauty ever had this published—all she knows is that she left Samantha with a copy, and that she left Paris to return to London with a broken heart. If the novel ever had been published, it would be news to Gabrielle—but spending her life in, as the Priest below them continues to shout, a veritable Sodom and Gomorrah, certainly means that she is unable to keep up with the affairs of young, modern writers and the publishing of great works of literature. She tries to recall the title of the last book she read. Nothing comes to her. She looks down at the manuscript on her lap. At least she knows what the name of the next book she will read is; the title written neatly below Cassie’s beautiful old life mantra. She reads it aloud.

“The Moulin Rouge,” She introduces. And then, she begins to read.


	2. The Bohemians

The Moulin Rouge. A nightclub. A dance hall and a bordello.

Ruled over by Aleister Crowley, a man with the tongue of a serpent who could charm anyone with twice the ease.

A Kingdom of night time pleasures, where the rich and powerful came to play with the young and beautiful creatures of the underworld.

The most beautiful of all these was the woman whom Castielle loved. Deanna. A courtesan, she sold her love to men. They called her 'The Sparkling Diamond'—and she was the star of the Moulin Rouge. But something evil from the outside world took root in her heart and buried itself there, stealing each of Deanna's breaths and twisting itself around her heart and lungs.

The woman Castielle loved… is dead.

Castielle first came to Paris, from London, one year ago. She had a flurry of ridiculous ideas in her head about the the way that the world worked and how it was sick, sick with something for which there was only one cure, which of course Castielle could preach of until the illness was purged and the earth was cured and beautiful and free once again…

It was the Summer of 1899, the summer of love, they called it. Cassie caught train from London to Dover and the ferry from Dover to Calais, and of course a train from Calais into Paris. To her, it was a beautiful city brimming with possibilities, with all that was wonderful. Needless to say, retrospect has taught her better.

She knew nothing of the Moulin Rouge, Aleister Crowley, or Deanna. The world had been swept up in the Bohemian Revolution, and Castielle had travelled from London to be a part of it. On the hill near Paris was the village of Montmartre—it was not, as Castielle's father had said, " _A village of sin!"—_ but the centre of the bohemian world. Musicians, painters, writers… They were known as 'the children of the revolution'.

Yes, Castielle had come to live a raw, wonderful, penniless existence away from her bourgeois family and their middle-class, landowning ideals; she had come to write about truth, beauty, freedom, and that which she believed in above all other things—love.

When Castielle had explained this plan to her father, he'd seemed less than amused. His response of " _Always this_ ridiculous _obsession with_ love!" echoed in her skull all the way from England, but she forged ahead in any case. Even Shakespeare had critics, and Castielle had always thought of the bard as something of a kindred spirit, writing always of faith and fault and revealing love to the world one truth at a time. This was what Cassie wanted to do.

There was only one problem, Castielle discovered, sitting beside her window in her dingy apartment on the second floor, fingers ready at the typewriter, ready to write, ready to begin, unable to continue.

She'd never been in love.

Luckily, right at that moment, an unconscious Argentinean fell through her roof. The sound of a man shouting in horror sounded from the floor above.

He was quickly joined by a very short woman a few years Castielle's senior dressed as a nun, slamming the door to Castielle's apartment open. The nun costume wasn't very convincing, all things considered.

"How do you do?" She asked, stepping awkwardly towards Castielle with a confidence the younger girl had never seen before; at least not being worn by such a short, unconvincing nun who was quickly getting covered in plaster from the ceiling above in one of the most notoriously immoral cities in Europe. "My name is Gabrielle. Gabriella Maria—actually, fuck that. You can call me Gabriel. Or Gabe. I'm not all that fond of my Christian name, and anyway, I'm not nearly feminine enough to pull it off. In case you couldn't tell, I'm not even a real nun."

Cassie was bewildered.

"What?"

Gabrielle—Gabriel?—ignored Cassie's confusion and made her way over to the unconscious Argentinean, who was hanging from the ceiling by his foot, Castielle realised only now, which was obviously caught on a rope. How strange all this seemed.

"I'm terribly sorry about all this," Gabriel sighed as though it were nothing to be bewildered, or even slightly put out, by, and was in fact a very ordinary state of affairs, if a frustrating one. "We were just upstairs rehearsing a play."

"What?" Cassie asked again, no less lost. If anything, Gabrielle's calm attitude, suggesting that everything going on were perfectly usual, confused her even _more._ Cassie stood static, unsure of what to do or even how to speak, watching as the nun untied the unconscious man's foot and attempted—rather poorly, however noble the act was—to ease his fall to the ground. He didn't wake up.

"A play." Gabrielle answered, straightening out the unconscious man's clothing. Cassie wanted to protest and say that she _knew_ what a play was, actually, but Gabrielle continued in explaining what it was, and what it was about.

Something very modern, apparently, called Spectacular, Spectacular.

"And it's in Switzerland!" Gabrielle exclaimed, beaming up at Castielle as she shoved one of her shirts, which had been lying on an empty chair, under the unconscious man's head to form a kind of makeshift pillow.

Unfortunately, as it turned out, the unconscious Argentinean—who was one of the stars of the play—suffered from a sickness called narcolepsy.

"Perfectly fine one moment," Gabrielle had somehow jumped over to Cassie and her typewriter in half a second flat, and spoke through her giggles and incessant beaming, "and then suddenly," Gabrielle made a snoring noise and closed her eyes, letting her mouth fall slack, "Unconscious the next!" She beamed giddily. "Funny, isn't it?"

The stranger laughed rather oddly. Castielle took an awkward step back and fell into her chair.

"How is he?" A high pitched voice from above Castielle's head asked. The young woman glanced up and saw three, very odd, very bohemian looking people staring worriedly down at her, Gabrielle and the unconscious man.

None of the three below had the chance to answer, because the woman of the trio above began speaking, sounding very much exasperated.

"How wonderful," She rolled her eyes, "that the narcoleptic Argentinean is now unconscious. And that therefore the scenario will _not_ be finished in time to present to the financier tomorrow."

Cassie winced at the way the woman spoke.

"She's right, Gabrielle." A man with a short beard and black hair squirmed above them from where he leant over the hole, next to the angry woman. "I still have to finish the music."

Gabrielle seemed utterly unperturbed.

"We'll just find someone to read the part." She shrugged, grinning.

The angry woman above them grew angrier.

"And where in heaven's name are we going to find someone to read the part of a young, sensitive Swiss poet-goatherder?"

Gabrielle looked across at Castielle. Castielle frowned at Gabrielle.

"You were writing, just now, weren't you?"

"Uh—no—" Castielle lied, quite terribly. The shorter woman grinned wider.

"What are you, a poet? An author? A playwright? All three?"

"I'm a—"

Gabrielle didn't wait for Cassie to answer. She grinned up at the woman above them.

"Becky, how would you feel about the young, sensitive Swiss poet-goatherder being played by a woman?"

The woman—Becky—looked exasperated, but shrugged.

Castielle looked up at her with a growing sense of dread.

And before she knew it, Cassie was upstairs, standing in for the unconscious Argentinean.


	3. The Bohemian's Apartment

Upstairs in the Bohemian's flat, Castielle stood awkwardly below Gabrielle, who balanced atop some quite precarious looking Swiss Alps scenery, behind which rested a single, even more precarious looking ladder, holding the majority of the actress-nun's weight. The man who had been fretting over the music played an elaborate piano he had proudly introduced to Castielle as the 'Absinthesizer', while Gabrielle sung, and, all in all, everything both sounded and looked terrible.

"The hills are animate," Gabrielle sang, the wailing piano clashing quite awfully with her choice of notes—the nun hardly seemed to care, and if anything, seemed to enjoy it more that the effect was so teeth-grindingly bad—"with the euphonious symphonies of descent,"

Castielle worried at her lip until she drew blood, and winced.

"Ah, ha, ah, ha, ahh," Gabrielle beamed, just as the pianist played the wrong notes.

Becky had flinched at every sound made by both the piano and the singer, and chose this moment to explode and tell them both off—Castielle felt this was unfair; while she was certain that Gabrielle was being deliberately bad, she felt that this was only because the tiny actress seemed to find it so very entertaining; and Gabrielle only seemed to find the need to find it so very entertaining because the production, as it stood, was so appallingly bad anyway—so Cassie found herself sympathizing greatly, though she was sure she would rather die than say so. As for the musician, caught between a terrible instrument that seemed as though it had literally been built out of whatever could be found on the streets of Paris, and terrible lyrics with little to no metre, was it any surprise that what he played lacked all and any musicality?

"Oh, stop, stop stop!" Becky wailed. "Stop, stop, stop, stop, _stop_! Stop that insufferable droning—it's drowning out my words!"

She knelt down beside the nervous looking musician.

"Can't we just stick to a little decorative piano?" She asked, gesturing vaguely.

There seemed to be a few artistic differences over Becky's lyrics and Aaron's songs.

"I just don't think a nun would say that about a hill," Frowned the other man in the room, a scrawny, nervous looking little thing. As soon as he said this, it seemed remarkably as though he thought it the biggest mistake of his life, and regret sprawled itself across his features.

Luckily, Aaron seemed to agree with him.

"What if he sings, 'the hills are vital, intoning the descant'?"

"No, no, no, no." The scrawny man shakes his head. "The hills—"

Suddenly the Argentinian awoke—Castielle nearly jumped out of her skin—as he exclaimed,

"The hills are incarnate, with symphonic melodics!"

The group stared at him. It was certainly an improvement on Becky's lyrics, though not by much—and before they could say any of this, he had fallen back asleep.

"No," The scrawny man mumbled. "That doesn't quite work…"

"She's only a nun, after all." Pointed out Aaron.

"The hills—" Castielle tried to interject, coming up with her own idea. None of them seemed to hear her.

"What are you trying to say, Aaron?" Gabrielle frowned, climbing down from the Swiss Alps she had been standing on. "Nuns can know big words."

"Some, maybe," Aaron shrugged. "But not this one." He pushed back Gabrielle's habit, and she glared at him and straightened her costume out.

"No, no." Becky shook her head. "The hills quake and shake—"

"No."

"Why not?! I'm the writer!"

"And I'm writing the music! And I'm telling you that sounds terrible!"

Cassie tried again.

"The hills—" She started, but again, no one heard.

"The hills," Gabrielle had begun pacing. "The hills are… The hills…"

"Are chanting the eternal mantra?" The scrawny man suggested, blinking hard.

Becky shouted that now the scrawny young man—Garth, it turned out his name was—was being ridiculous. He shouted that she was being ridiculous. Aaron shouted that the work environment they had forced him into was ridiculous, and that any suggestion that he could create any piece of half-decent music here was ridiculous. Gabrielle shouted, grinning widely, that they were all being ridiculous and that she was the only one with any sense around for miles, and then she started singing again, very obviously mocking Becky's poor songwriting skills through belting the most outrageous lyrics she seemed able to concoct at that very moment.

"The hills," Cassie began waving her arms, attempting to gain everyone's attention—it was of course to no avail. She sighed and climbed the Swiss Alps props, wobbling on the ancient ladder as everyone around her continued to shout.

"The hills are alive," She sang from on top of the enormous thing, terrified of falling—but now, at least, she had gained their attention. "With the sound of music."

Silence fell.

The Argentinean revived with a start and stumbled off the bed the others had placed him on.

"The hills are alive with the sound of music!" He exclaimed, so loudly that Cassie nearly fell of the ladder anyway. "I love it!"

Castielle regained her balance, now sighing with relief over two things.

Garth beamed.

"The hills are alive," He sang, repeating the melody Cassie had deciphered out of Aaron's music,

"With the sound—" Gabrielle interrupted, grinning,

"Of music!" Aaron turned to him, mouth agape. "It fits perfectly!"

Confidence growing, Cassie continued, climbing down the ladder as gracefully as she could, one step at a time.

"With songs they have sung," She laughed a little nervously as she continued singing, "For a thousand years."

The group shared in a collective gasp—all, of course, except for Becky, who glared hard at Castielle.

"Incandiferous!" Gabrielle exclaimed. Cassie frowned at the word. "Becky," Gabrielle turned, gesturing to the rather displeased looking woman behind her, "you two should write the show together!"

Becky squinted, as though disgusted by something that could be ranked along the same vein as a decaying rat.

"I beg your pardon?" She gasped.

Gabrielle's suggestion that Audrey and Cassie write the show together was not what she wanted to hear.

"Goodbye!" Was the last, appalled word Castielle ever heard Becky speak as she slammed the door to the bohemian's apartment thickly behind her.

Gabrielle didn't seem all too cut up about Becky's departure, and Cassie began to wonder if perhaps she had made the comment about Castielle and Becky working together only in an attempt to frustrate the ex-writer, perhaps even into leaving. In any case, as Gabrielle raised a glass of an odd, green looking liquid from a stained crystal cup, she beamed warmly at Castielle and informed her that she was to be the new writer for the show.

"Here's to your first job in Paris!" She grinned, tipping the glass in Cassie's direction before knocking it back. Aaron looked less enthusiastic.

"Gabe, you know that Crowley will never agree…" He looked apprehensively at Castielle. "No offense, but have you ever written anything like this before?"

Cassie felt suddenly downcast. She shook her head softly.

"No…" She admitted. Aaron exchanged a glance with Garth. Castielle worried at her lip.

"Ahh!" The Argentinian strode over to Castielle, "The girl has talent!"

In gesturing as dramatically as he did towards Castielle, his hand hit her square in the chest, for one thing knocking the wind quite out of her, and for another looking very inappropriate.

"I like her!" He exclaimed passionately, then, noticing where his hand was, he took a sharp step away from Cassie, hand snapping back down to his side, his face reddening. "Nothing funny." He amended, embarrassed. "I just like talent."

Gabrielle walked slowly towards the young writer, face calmer than Cassie had seen it since she had first met the actress.

"The hills are alive with the sound of music," She said thoughtfully. She spun around on her heel to face the rest of the group, quite excluding Castielle from what it was she said next. "See, Aaron, with Castielle we can write the truly bohemian revolutionary show that we've always dreamed of!"

Aaron remained unconvinced.

"But how will we convince Crowley?"

It seemed a staggering question.

But Gabrielle had a plan.

"Deanna."


	4. The Voice of the Children

They would dress Castielle up in one of the dresses that Becky had left behind in her hurry out of the apartment; a sleek black thing that the poor, now ex-show writer had probably planned to wear to the opening night of her masterpiece, but would do so no more; in an attempt to pass Cassie off as a famous English writer. They even put her in a top hat for effect.

Looking at herself in the stained mirror in Gabrielle's flat, Cassie couldn't help thinking that she looked like everything her parents had wanted her to become; a proper lady—if only the dress were covering her shoulders, she amended, as it was her mother would probably compare her to one of the whores in the Moulin Rouge, with her chest and shoulders bared as they were.

Once Deanna had heard Cassie's modern poetry, the plan went, she would be astounded and insist to Crowley personally that Castielle write Spectacular, Spectacular. The plan, at least on the surface, seemed perfect—the only problem was that Cassie kept hearing her father's voice in her head saying the same thing he had said a thousand times before Castielle boarded the train to Dover by herself.

" _You'll end up wasting your life at the Moulin Rouge with a cancan dancer!"_

Castielle spun around from the mirror to look at Gabrielle as she grinned childishly at the young writer, still holding her glass of odd, green liquid, now freshly replenished.

"I can't write the show for the Moulin Rouge!" Castielle burst out suddenly. She ran a worried hand through her long dark hair and attempted—very poorly, as, much to her parent's dismay she was unused to wearing dresses and skirts and instead opted towards trousers; men's or otherwise—to make her way towards the hole in the floor the Argentinean fell through.

It proved even more difficult than she had first thought to clamber down the ladder they had propped up there, in the long dark dress she was now wearing. It gave the entire group more than enough time to run over to her and squat down on the floor so that they were almost at eye level with her as she attempted to depart through the hole in the floor.

"Why not?" Gabrielle asked, sounding as confused as Cassie had felt upon first seeing the older woman at their odd introduction.

"I don't even know if I _am_ a true bohemian revolutionary." Castielle shook her head, blurting the words out before she could think to stop them.

"What?" Gabrielle asked, as though the mere suggestion of this were ridiculous. She looked at Aaron in surprise, who pressed his lips together and said nothing. She sighed, exasperated, and turned back to Castielle. "Do you believe in beauty?" She asked.

"Yes," Castielle admitted—but really, who in Paris didn't?

"Freedom?" The narcoleptic asked. Something glimmered in his dark brown eyes.

"Yes, of course…" Castielle nodded, looking down at the ladder she rested on.

"Truth?" Aaron asked.

Cassie looked at the musician.

"Yes." She confirmed. She could see where they were going with this, but didn't feel sure of how to protest further.

"Love?" Garth asked. Cassie looked over to him, now. She licked her lips, expression worried.

"Love?" She repeated. The scrawny man nodded, smiling gently. "Love." She nearly laughed. "Above all things, I believe in love. Love is like oxygen," She explained. "Love is a many-splendored thing, love… lifts us up where we belong. All you need is love!"

The group looked at Cassie like she was some kind of god. She shied away from it, tempted to take another step down the rungs of the ladder.

Gabrielle laughed, beaming. "See, you can't fool us." She shook her head. "You're the voice of the children of the revolution!"

"We can't be fooled!" They all exclaimed together. Cassie's face felt hot.

Before she had been given the chance to protest any further, they had all hoisted her up from the ladder, and back onto the floor of the bohemian apartment, Aaron and Garth slipping their hands underneath her arms, Gabrielle grabbing the back of Cassie's dress so hard that she was afraid it might rip.

Suddenly, Gabrielle was holding the bottle of the strange green liquid she had been drinking, and five murky looking glasses—one for each of them.

"Let's drink to the new writer of the world's first bohemian revolutionary show!" She exclaimed. Castielle pressed her lips together nervously, but said nothing.

It seemed the perfect plan. Cassie was to audition for Deanna, and the girl would take to Castielle's natural way with words immediately, and beg Crowley to put on whatever production it was Cassie ended up writing—or so Gabrielle claimed.

In the meantime, Castielle was to taste her first glass of absinthe.

The night turned strange and hazy for her, after that. Or rather, stranger than it had been before. Music seemed to echo around Castielle's skull, singing " _There was a girl…"_ over and over and over again, as all the group drank. Staring at the bottle of absinthe, Cassie convinced herself that the green fairy on it was moving. Then it started talking to her. Strangest of all, although only in retrospect, Cassie would realise later on, was that at the time, _none_ of this seemed odd.

" _I'm the green fairy,"_ the fairy on the bottle beamed, dancing like the dancers in the Moulin Rouge must dance, Cassie thought.

The fairy started to sing as the rest of the group began to sing. She flew off the bottle of absinthe and danced in the starlight behind Cassie's eyes.

"The hills are alive," Gabrielle's arms were around Cassie, Cassie's arms were around Aaron, Aaron's arms were around Garth, Garth's arms were supporting the one-again unconscious Argentinian, "with the sound of music."

The group laughed drunkenly and Castielle thought of how now, _finally,_ she was really and truly living, living in a way that she had been unable to in Kentish Town, her old home—its pretty neat lines of houses had seemed somehow unreal and tasted bland, whereas the derelict aesthetics of Montmartre were raw and real and beautiful and so, _so_ immediate, Cassie felt as though she might cry for how grounded yet romantic it all was.

The group moved to dance on the balcony of Gabrielle's studio, and Cassie's head was spinning and the fairy kept dancing in the back of her eyes and the young writer couldn't help but think of how agonizingly beautiful the fairy was; more beautiful than any man could be, or would be, to her.

" _A very strange, enchanted girl,"_ The voice in Cassie's head sang-she tried to remind herself to write it down later, it might be something quite pretty to put in her poetry, she thought, but as it turned out quite forgot to do so for a very long time indeed.

The drunken laughter of the group rang happily in Cassie's ears. She had never been drunk before; she was only twenty-one, and the only parties she had been to were the parties her parents hosted to impress the aristocratic classes that lived around them and to make the fellow industrial businessmen and their families jealous.

"Freedom," Gabrielle beamed,

"Beauty!" Aaron joined in,

"Truth!" The Argentinian bellowed from where he stood, on the very edge of the balcony—even in her drunken state, Cassie couldn't help but think of how much of a risk this was, considering the man's narcolepsy.

"And love!" Garth flung his arm around Castielle's shoulder and sang—or rather, shouted—drunkenly, at the top of his lungs. Castielle giggled and hugged the scrawny man back when he hugged her, considering of how much he reminded her of a little forest mouse, and how wonderful a character he would make in a children's story book.

The green fairy flew across Cassie's eyes and set the world alight in a beautiful pink glow, Cassie looked out across Paris and thought of how beautiful it was, thought of how she had already found love of some kind in this new, wonderful city, of how many radical and mystical characters its streets had seen—and how, perhaps, she was the next of these.

Gabrielle began a new song, now, one that Cassie did not recognise, but quickly picked up—the whole group joined in, Castielle's head feeling giddier and giddier.

" _No, you won't fool the children of the revolution,"_ It went, over and over again, and the fairy flew back into Castielle's vision and began to sing again, " _The hills are alive, with the sound of music,"_ over it, and the sound was so beautiful and both the songs intertwined and made love to one another and Cassie was growing more and more confused, her vision more and more blurred.

Garth kept beaming about how they were off to the Moulin Rouge, and how Castielle was to perform her poetry for Deanna, how it would be the most marvelous thing the world had ever witnessed.

The Moulin Rouge was just opposite them, they could look into its courtyard from the balcony they stood on; and the windmill began to rotate very fast—so fast Casstielle felt quite sick; it looked like a spiralling tunnel, Cassie felt herself and all the others being sucked in as she fell, fell forwards, on the balcony, the green fairy appeared again and its eyes turned read and it began to sing to sing very high and very loud, and somewhere behind her Cassie heard a "Yahh!" of somebody exclaiming something, clearly distressed—probably about the fact that they were about to be sucked into some enormous light-tunnel that spiralled and spun so much that Cassie felt even _more_ sick, if that could be possible—and then she felt two pairs of strong arms grab hold of her, pulling her back, away from the spiralling tunnel, and everything went black.


	5. The Cancan

A dark haired, bearded man in strangely extravagant clothing poked his head out from behind an enormous curtain, whilst singing and dancing and music surrounded him.

"The Moulin Rouge!" He shouted, to a cheering, overjoyed, bawdy audience. Cassie sat uncomfortably in a booth seat beside the throng, glad to be out of the push and heave of the enormous crowd.

Aleister Crowley and his infamous girls.

They called these girls his 'Diamond Dogs'.

It struck Castielle that the men who frequented these night-clubs had little respect for the women who danced at them.

Crowley, surrounded by women, danced on the stage as the curtain was pulled back. He spoke as though he owned all the money in the world—Castielle reminded herself that he probably did. He sang—or rather, spoke, Cassie couldn't quite tell—a bawdy rhyme that made the young writer wrinkle her nose and squirm in her seat; it was a song that indulged the dreary egos of the men present in the audience, particularly the older ones—and all the girls around Crowley joined in, and Castielle wondered what it was that brought them here and whether or not they felt they could confide in one another and find some comfort there, or considered themselves totally alone in the world. She wondered if they cried about it often, or if they didn't care, if they enjoyed it, enjoyed the attention.

She felt glad for her upper middle class family and her education and her relatives waiting at home for her, ready to welcome her back, if only in return for a heartfelt apology and repentance of sins. That felt like a small price to pay in comparison to what these girls had to do to keep a roof over their heads.

" _Voulez-vous coucher avec moi? Ce soir?"_ The girls sang, and the men jeered, and Castielle glanced to Gabrielle to see what the woman made of all of this. All the while, Crowley sang of how these rich old men's dark desires were good and fun, he encouraged them to indulge, to live, passionately, relentlessly, without regret. Cassie wondered if the women dancing ever dreamt of anything bigger, smaller, just different.

Then suddenly, Crowley stood up on the balcony above the stage, the men and women turned to look up at him, and the music fell deathly quiet.

"The cancan," He whispered—but somehow they all heard him—and flipped a sign on the balcony which indicated which dance was occurring to 'The Cancan', and all the dancers suddenly rearranged themselves, their billowing, frilled skirts lifted up. Cassie realised suddenly that they weren't wearing underwear.

The music grew louder and louder, the crowd happier and happier. Cassie glanced at Gabrielle again and was surprised to see that she looked happy, entertained as well. She handed Castielle a drink.

"You look a little miserable," She shouted over the din. "Enjoy yourself! They all are!" She gestured out to the crowd in front of them.

"Are _they_?" Castielle asked, unconvinced, pointing to the dancing girls.

"Of course!" Gabrielle shouted in Cassie's ear. "Look at them!"

Castielle looked at the girls again. They were smiling, certainly. Did that mean they were really having fun? Were they happy when they were dancing? People enjoyed dancing, certainly—but for the pleasure of other, older people?

"Drink," Gabrielle instructed, tapping the glass she had placed in Cassie's hand. "It's good for you. So is the dancing, for that matter."

"Oh yes?"

"Oh yes." The woman confirmed. "It's all just fun! That's all!—And anyway, humans are creatures of passion, of desire. It's healthy to release those things once in a while." Castielle pressed her lips together at the actress's words, but said nothing. It would certainly be easier for her to simply accept that the Moulin Rouge was the reality of things, and have fun while she was there. So why shouldn't she? Hadn't she moved to Paris to live a freer, open, tolerant life? Whatever happened to her concepts of Liberté, égalité and fraternité? Did Cassie really only consider those ideals to be just that, ideal, when the beliefs of those she was surrounded by matched her own, identically? Didn't that make her a hypocrite? Didn't that make her just as bad as her father? "So drink! Have fun. Indulge. It's what we do. It's how we satisfy. It's good for you—do you know why?"

"Because it's good for your mind?" Castielle asked.

"Because it's good for your mind." Gabrielle repeated, grinning. She stood and danced. Cassie stood too.

She was finally getting used to the Moulin Rouge.

The singing and music continued.

Castielle began dancing with several cancan dancers, head spinning from the drink Gabrielle gave her.

"Cassie!"

The group of her friends calling Castielle over dragged her away from the revelry.

"Cassie!" Gabrielle shouted again. Castielle sat back down at their table. The women continued singing.

"What is it?" She asked.

"Mission one accomplished." Garth grinned.

"Which was?" Cassie enquired, still feeling dazed and confused.

"We successfully evaded Zidler." Gabrielle positively glowed, speaking as though all these matters were extremely covert and secretive. It seemed to bring her a great deal of pleasure.

Castielle wasn't used to baring her shoulders, and began shivering in the hall. Garth glanced at her.

"Cold?" He asked.

"Normally I wear…" She mumbled, embarrassed. "Men's clothing. Which tends to be a little warmer. That's all—it's silly, really. I'm just not used to—" She gestured to her bare shoulders, embarrassed.

The scrawny man looked at her kindly.

"Here," He said, taking off his suit jacket. "I'm probably the same measurements as you," He joked, and Cassie giggled nervously, "so take this. You'll warm up soon enough, I'm sure."

Castielle was touched.

"Thank you," She said softly. She wasn't used to men treating her with such innocent kindness. Garth shrugged and waved her off good-naturedly.

Another shout from Crowley, and everyone fell silent. The music stopped once again. The lights went out, a hush fell over the entire crowd. Everyone seemed to be staring at the ceiling, so Castielle did, also.

A single light appeared, along with a flurry of confetti and smoke from the ceiling, on which the most beautiful girl Cassie thought she had ever seen sat on a bejeweled trapeze. Smaller lights appeared around her, like little stars, and the girl on the trapeze looked so graceful and unperturbed by her audience, as though she had no idea she even _had_ an audience. Castielle let out a breath she didn't realise she had been holding.

"It's her," Gabrielle whispered, ecstatic, in Cassie's ear. "The Sparkling Diamond."

Cassie trembled for how beautiful it all was.

The girl had long, dirty blonde-brown hair tied up high on her head that came down in cascading, neat waves; she wore a glittering corset that looked as though it had been embroidered with a thousand tiny crystals, she wore long earrings and her eyes were made up dark, cat-like, and from underneath her set of black lashes glittered a pair of eyes the colour of new leaves in spring. Her lips were painted dark; that colour caught between red and pink, and her expression remained utterly unreadable.

Cassie's breath caught in her throat again—and when the girl began to sing, Castielle became convinced that she could die happy.

" _The French are glad to die for love,"_ The Sparkling Diamond began, trapeze spinning lazily as she sang, looking down at the audience with some kind of warmth balanced with pride and elegance, " _They delight in fighting duels…"_

The audience gazed up at her like she was the face of God. Cassie was beginning to wonder if maybe she really _was,_ and then she thought, terrified, that _this_ was Deanna—this was the girl she had to read her poetry too, that night.

Should the thought have terrified her so? Perhaps she ought to be elated, she thought—sitting in the presence of the girl, even from a distance, felt like a blessing in itself—so standing in front of her and _speaking_ to her? Cassie couldn't imagine the honour ot would feel, and Cassie wanted to imagine for a living.

But someone else was to meet Deanna that night.

" _Yet I prefer a man who lives,"_ Deanna sang, flashing a knowing, beguiling smile at a few of the men in the audience, who seem almost ready to stagger backwards out of shock. " _And gives expensive..."_

The other man Deanna was to meet was Crowley's investor.

" _...Jewels."_ Deanna finished with a whisper

The Duke.

Alastair, his name was, and from London, just as Cassie was. He had a sadistic streak and a lust for things younger and prettier than himself—and there were none younger or prettier at the Moulin Rouge than Deanna Winchester.

The men in the audience began to cheer headily, Deanna leant back on the trapeze and swang on it, making it twirl round in a wide, graceful circle, while her audience screamed and cheered in adoration. Castielle gazed up at Deanna, the girl moving as though she were made of air, and felt her head spinning. Was it spinning because of the alcohol Gabrielle had given her? Or because of Deanna's spinning from such a height? Neither of these explanations seemed adequate.

Cassie didn't know that in the booth adjacent to the one she sat in another pair of eyes were fixed upon Deanna with the same kind of marked awe as the young writer felt for The Sparkling Diamond.

The trapeze glided lower to the ground, still moving in wide circles, growing wider, moving faster, and Castielle watched as Deanna leant down to touch the hands of the worshipful men reaching up to her.

She began singing again, and the trapeze stopped spinning; instead Deanna swung from it, backwards and forwards like a child, while her singing voice remained low and sweet and remarkably like velvet and somehow far more mature than the years on Deanna's face.

Singing, Deanna jumped off the trapeze too gracefully for words, singing about diamonds and sex, which was strange because to Castielle, her voice seemed to ooze both of these things. The Diamond Dogs joined her singing, they sang of materialism and shallow things that, were they to come from anybody else, Castielle was sure she would have despised the lyrics—but somehow the young writer adored the raw honesty of Deanna's lines. She bent over as she danced and allowed men to pretend to spank her, while others held up jewels and money for her to take, in return for just a moment of her attention.

Cassie was blissfully unaware that at that moment, the Duke Alastair was speaking with Crowley about meeting the beautiful dancing girl, and obsessed, hungry look growing in his eye with every moment of Deanna's singing that passed.

"When am I going to meet the girl?" He asked, voice quiet and nasal and dangerous. He never once looked away from Deanna's sparkling body.

"Tiffany's!" Deanna shouted from where she danced, being lifted high into the air by a group of male dancers. The whole thing was so oddly surreal to Castielle; it hardly seemed possible that this could be a reality, it ought to be the odd fantasy of a perverted millionaire—which, Cassie reminded herself, it probably was.

"Tonight, after her number," Crowley explained to the Duke, voice oil-slick and charming, "I've arranged a special meeting. Just you and Mademoiselle Satine. Totally alone."

"Totally alone?" As always, there was something dangerous in Alastair's voice.

"Yes," Crowley grinned. "Totally alone."

"Cartier!" Deanna shouted, men lifting her up and down gracefully across the floor as though she weighed no more than silk did. A man held up a bunch of roses for her and she slapped them away, huffing out a loud indignant sound—before pushing the young man back and clambering on top of him, straddling his body. He looked a surreal combination between elated and terrified.

"After her number, I've arranged a private meeting," Gabrielle turned and murmured to Castielle. "Just you and Mademoiselle Deanna. Totally alone!" She exclaimed, as though this were the most marvelous thing in all the universe.

"Alone?" Castielle repeated, suddenly terrified and uncomfortable again.

"Yes," Gabrielle grinned. "Totally alone."

Deanna got up off the man she had been straddling and blew a kiss to him.

"Come and get me, boys." She positively glowed, voice as sweet as honey and smooth and rich as red wine. The men lifted her again, Deanna beaming and raising her arms in the air.

"Oh, my," Castielle found herself saying, though she wasn't sure what at.

Zidler took this moment to excuse himself from the Duke; Deanna still singing and being carried around. She leant back in the men's arms so that they were carrying her horizontally, she laid the back of her head on her hands and made it all look awfully simple and easy.

"Black Star, Roscor," She sang, "Talk to me Aleister Crowley, tell me all about it!" The men carrying Deanna on their shoulders turned her around and stopped at a large, round table and she stepped gracefully onto it.

Crowley made his way to the table Deanna had been deposited on, and the two began performing together, Crowley pretending to tease The Sparkling Diamond while she ran her hands over his shoulders—when Crowley pretended to grab Deanna, Cassie found herself standing up, seeing red.

"Don't worry, don't worry—I'll sally forth and tee things up!" Gabrielle exclaimed, pushing Cassie back down into her seat—but as she span around to enter into the next booth, she knocked hard into a waiter and caused a tray of tea to fall onto the Duke.

"Oh!" She exclaimed, as Alastair glared daggers at her and shouted in angry surprise.

"Is the investor here, Crowley?" Deanna asked from where she continued dancing with Crowley.

"Liebchen," Crowley leered, "would Daddy let you down?"

Deanna grinned and rolled her eyes, but continued performing.

Crowley turned around to the Duke, and gasped at the sight of him—Gabrielle was at that moment, attempting—possibly deliberately—very poorly and with a great deal of hassle and awkwardness, to get the tea off him. Alastair was growing more and more frustrated, anger surfacing on his face and making his expression twitch something quite terrible, and the look was hardly comely on him.

"Terribly sorry," Gabrielle grinned awkwardly to the Duke. "So clumsy, you wouldn't believe!"

"Where?" Deanna asked Crowley.

"Uh—" Crowley winced and grated his teeth. "The one Gabrielle is shaking is shaking a hanky at. Looking awkward."

At that moment, Gabrielle darted over to Castielle.

"Excuse me, Cassie, may I borrow?" She asked, taking the handkerchief Castielle had been scrunching nervously at for the past hour or so. Cassie shrugged, distracted, as Gabrielle waved the hanky at her.

Deanna squinted over to Castielle and Gabrielle at this very moment, as Gabe waved the hankerchief in front of Cassie's distracted face.

Naturally, she thought Cassie was the investor.

"Are you sure?" Deanna asked, frowning softly. "Hardly _looks_ like noble blood."

"Let me peek," Crowley mumbled, turning just in time to see Gabrielle shake the handkerchief at Duke.

"Let me finish," Gabrielle nearly giggled as she shook the hanky at Alastair. "I'm ever so sorry! It's so embarrassing."

"That's the one, chickpea." Crowley confirmed, back on stage. "Let's hope the demonic little loon that is Gabrielle doesn't frighten our money off." He rolled his eyes. Deanna giggled. Crowley handled her a heart made of diamonds, and Deanna faked an elated squeal. She knew the act well, and played it for all it was worth.

Meanwhile, the Duke was growing angrier. He snarled at Gabrielle, lashing out at her, which naturally put the actress quite out, and she threw the handkerchief at him.

"Clean it yourself, you bourgeois pig!" She snapped, then snorted at him.

Matters seemed far less funny to her when Alastair's bodyguard, Jackson, grabbed her, turned her around and revealed a gun underneath his suit.

Gabe's eyes widened.

"Sorry!" She exclaimed, darting out of the booth once again. "Sorry!" She repeated.

At that moment, a dozen cancan dancers lifted their skirts so that Deanna and Crowley were hidden behind them, able to change.

"So we'll have the money?" She asked, her onstage act slipping off quickly to reveal a concerned young girl, no older than nineteen.

"Pigeon!" Crowley exclaimed. "After spending a night with you, how could _anyone_ refuse?"

Deanna worried at her lip, looking down, but didn't ask any more questions, at least for a few more moments as she continued to change.

"What act should I do?" She asked, looking up suddenly again. "What would be most likely to—persuade?" She winced at her own words, but Crowley only seemed vaguely amused. "Wilting flower?" She asked. "Bright and bubbly? Or smoldering temptress?"

"Do each of them for me now." Crowley's smile was lazy and confident. At Deanna's 'smouldering temptress', wherein she put on a sensual, hungry act and purred lightly, Crowley's smile turned filthy.

"I'd say smouldering temptress." He advised. "Remember, we're all relying on you, gosling."

Deanna looked down again.

" _Remember_ ," Crowley said, again, speaking over the din of the cheering crowd from beyond the cancan skirts currently sheltering them. "A real show. In a real theatre, with a real audience—and you'd be—"

Deanna's expression softened. Years of her life seemed to lift off it. For the first time since the beginning of her performance, a light flickered across her eyes, her expression turned genuine; there was no guise of happiness or playfulness any more; it seemed as though an enormous weight had slid itself off her shoulders.

"—A real actress." Deanna finished for Crowley. Lost in the thought for but a moment, she looked up and smiled sweetly at Crowley again, the guise sliding back across her face, the weight pressing back onto her shoulders, and she stood and continued her singing act.

The cancan dancers moved back out, giving Deanna and Crowley room; Deanna now wearing a pale pink corset that glittered like caves of precious stones, and a long, feathered pink skirt the stretched only round the back of her, leaving the fronts of her legs completely exposed. As she danced, Gabrielle pushed her way through the crowd, and attempted to gain The Sparkling Diamond's attention, as she had promised Cassie what felt like an age earlier.

"Bejeweled vision!" She called out. "Amazonian goddess!"

Deanna continued singing; Gabrielle couldn't tell if she had heard her, because regardless, the girl would have to continue her act, anyway.

The floor was a mess of dancers and revellers and Gabe struggled immensely to make her way through them.

"I've got some exciting news!" The actress shouted.

At that moment, Deanna strolled over to Cassie, who could do nothing but look up at her, utterly star-struck.

"I believe you are expecting me," Deanna looked down at Castielle, positively smouldering, her voice soft and low and dangerous.

"Yes—" Cassie managed to stammer out, face heating furiously. "Yes."

Deanna beamed and turned round to the crowd, expression turning mischievous as she arched an eyebrow to her audience.

"I'm afraid it's lady's choice!" She announced.

The crowd cheered as she pointed to Castielle—who was far too shocked to move, which, according to her luck, translated to Deanna thinking that Cassie was rejecting her. She pulled a sad, pouting face, turning to the audience again and starting to whine. The crowd all awed and played angry at Cassie, while Deanna turned around again, still pouting, and smiled wickedly, taking a handful of each side of her skirt and waving it up and down in turn, backing into Castielle. The young writer's insides trembled bright with fire.

The crowd began to cheer and chant her name; " _Deanna, Deanna, Deanna!"_ while the young dancer continued in her act, yelping and trilling. Cassie had never felt so uncomfortable in her life.

"I see you've already met my English friend." Gabrielle grinned over the din of the chanting men.

"I'll take care of it, Gabe." Deanna shimmered, turning back to Cassie and pulling her up by the hand. "Let's dance."

"Tell her your most modern poem!" Gabrielle shouted after Castielle as she was hauled to the dancefloor.

A tiny lady whom Cassie would learn to call 'Little Petite' stood at the very top of the stage and began to sing, and Castielle could only stand in the crowd, bewildered, while Deanna began to dance and whoop. Eventually, the men from the crowd grew frustrated and pushed Cassie in to dance with Deanna, by way of an encouragement.

"That seemed to go well." Aaron stated back in the booth, frowning slightly. A naturally cautious character, he was hardly used to plans running so seamlessly—especially those concocted by Gabrielle.

"Incredible." Garth grinned at the back of Cassie's head as she danced, facing Deanna. The poor girl could only remember a few steps she'd learnt at her parent's lavish parties; and the music they played at the Moulin Rouge was hardly along the same strand as the get-togethers of the upper-middle classes in Camden.

"She has a gift with the women." The Argentinean nodded sagely.

"I told you, she's a genius!" Gabrielle whispered excitedly.

"So you think Deanna… Swings that way?" Aaron asked, turning to face the group gesturing to Castielle.

"Who knows?" Gabrielle shrugged. "Do you think she's attracted to all those ancient, withered, millionaires Crowley normally gives her too? She's probably glad to be dancing with someone attractive for once, and young, at that, regardless of gender. And Castielle really _does_ have something going on-maybe it's those eyes with all that dark hair. Or her innocence. Or her awkwardness paired with that unpretentious grace? Whatever it is, who can blame Deanna for taking to it so quickly?"

"And does Castielle lean more towards… Deanna's type?" Aaron winced at his words.

Relatively new to Paris, and to Montmartre, he still struggled to speak of all the matters of sex and love and lust that came so naturally to others in the Moulin Rouge.

"I can't tell just by looking at people, Aaron." Gabe snorted. "But…" She squinted at Cassie as she danced among all the revellers. "The look on her face when she saw Deanna. I don't know—maybe she _does_ like women. It'd probably be a good thing." She decided, leaning back on her chair.

"Why's that?" Garth asked.

Gabrielle replied with a single word.

"Inspiration."

"What?"

"That's why she came to Paris," The young woman hummed. "She felt as though her writing was lacking… Something. She wanted to fall in love."

"So you think it'll only get _better?"_

"Who's to say?" Gabrielle grins. "But it seems as though Spectacular, Spectacular will be just that—spectacular." She grinned. "How could it not be, with Cassie? I said. She's a genius."

Dancing with Deanna, Cassie found her confidence. She _could_ dance, and even though she still felt terrified, Deanna seemed to be liking what she was seeing.

Watching the pair from a vision-blurring distance, Crowley mumbled to one of his employees how impressed he was by the Duke's dancing. All he saw was Cassie's top hat, the one that Gabrielle had put on top of her head despite her protestations, her dark hair tied up in a bun so that it looked remarkably short, and Garth's suit jacket slouched over her shoulders. Crowley _didn't see_ the woman underneath it all—a woman who was certainly not Alastair.

"That Duke certainly can dance," Crowley muttered, impressed. The girl he spoke to, Ruby, shrugged and nodded her head, hardly paying attention.

Deanna knelt down, her hands slipping down Cassie's body—the young writer thought her heart had dropped into her throat.

"So wonderful of you to take an interest in our little show," She positively glowed, fingers moving back up Castielle's body.

"It sounds very exciting," Cassie managed to gasp out. The world was buzzing in her ears, but, she reminded herself, she had to remain coherent if Gabrielle, Garth and Aaron were to have their play performed at the Moulin Rouge, as they did so dearly desire. "I'd be delighted to be involved."

"Really?" Deanna asked, frowning slightly incredulously. She seemed nonetheless delighted.

"Of course," Cassie confirmed, frowning also. "Assuming you like what I do, of course."

"I'm sure I will." Deanna's expression shifted into something new, and she smiled almost knowingly.

"Gabrielle said that we might be able to, um, do it in private." Cassie explained, tips of her ears heating. She had certainly thought it to be a good idea at the time Gabrielle mentioned it to her; perhaps away from the prying eyes of all those around them, Castielle would actually calm down and be able to _concentrate._

"Did she?" Deanna raised her eyebrows again, seeming taken aback.

"Yes." Cassie confirmed. Somehow she was struggling to maintain eye contact with the young courtesan. "You know," Castielle frowned. She could hardly think for how distracting Deanna's hands on her neck were. "A private poetry reading."

Realisation dawned over Deanna's face, while relief flooded through Cassie's body.

The young writer had no idea that the courtesan believed Cassie to be too afraid to mention sex in their conversation; while Deanna had no idea that Castielle really _did_ want to give Deanna a private poetry reading, in the purest sense of the term.

"Ohh!" Deanna exclaimed softly. "Mmm," She beamed. "A poetry reading. Oh, I _love_ a little poetry after supper."

Cassie could have beamed, out of character though it was for her. Deanna liked poetry! Perhaps they could talk of all the greats together; complain about some and worship others—would Deanna hate Lord Byron as much as Cassie did, she wondered? And what of Milton? Would she praise his passion for freedom or criticise his introspective individualism, in spite of the topics he explored? Perhaps Deanna liked French poetry—she lived in Paris, after all, it was only natural—would conversations on Voltaire be more suitable? Yet by Deanna's accent, Cassie guessed the girl was from America—how, then, had she ended up here? And would she prefer to discuss Emily Dickinson? Or Phillis Wheatley?

"Hang on to your hat!" Deanna leant in to shout into Cassie's ear over the growing din of the music, disrupting Castielle's thoughts completely. The writer frowned quizzically at Deanna for a moment, but her silent question was answered but a moment later when all the men around her shouted for joy and threw their hats into the air and all the world seemed to be made of ecstasy and chaos.

Deanna was unreal, Cassie decided; she was joy and love and beauty and sex and mystery all convoluted together to form something wonderful, corrupted by the world, certainly, but somehow still perfect and pure in every way. The writer didn't have a name for these feelings yet.

But she would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Please comment!


	6. The Fall

Deanna returned to her trapeze a little while after that as the show re-commenced, men underneath her, worshipping her, as she swung slowly, lazily, a knowing beam fixed across her features. Was it genuine, Cassie wondered? Did Deanna love dancing for the pleasure of older, richer men as much as her giggles and smiles and caresses directed towards members of the audience would suggest?

" _Diamonds,"_ She sang, swinging particularly hard forward to the beat of the music, " _Diamonds!"_ She repeated. The crowd beneath her positively fawned over her. " _Square-cut or pear-shaped, these rocks won't lose their shape,"_ Castielle considered, once again, that Deanna must be the most beautiful creature in all the universe, and sat in her booth once again, gasping up at the beautiful woman overhead, " _Diamonds are a girl's, best—"_

Deanna stammered.

She had stopped swinging. Her hands had grown slack on the trapeze. It seemed almost as though she may fall.

The audience beneath her turned suddenly silent. Panic rose inside of Cassie; pinpricks rose along her forearms and bile rose to the back of her throat.

Dread filled the crowd as quickly as anticipation for Deanna's appearance had, only hours ago.

Deanna had begun gasping for air. She glanced down, as though terrified, then her head fell back, and she was looking up at the ceiling of the Moulin Rouge, shaking.

Castielle realised that she had stood up in panic, staring helplessly at Deanna, though she wasn't sure why or when this had happened, or what it was she had intended to do once out of her seat.

Deanna's shaking continued, she gasped again, the audience seemed almost as terrified as the performer appeared, and suddenly, with Castielle's stomach lurching and her heart turning to ash inside the cage of her chest, Deanna fell off the trapeze, and down, down, down—

" _No!"_ Cassie heard Crowley shout, from somewhere on one of the balconies, as Deanna tumbled through the air—

And into the arms of her bodyguard, a man Cassie would learn was named Victor Henriksen, but was called Vic by those working in the Moulin Rouge.

Vic looked up to one the balconies, to where Castielle knew Crowley watched the show, before nodding and somehow disappearing into the crowd, taking Deanna backstage.

The crowd was completely silent, not knowing what to think. Cassie's heart was still hammering in her ears, she could feel its beats echoing around her skull as blood raced through her body. She tried to steady herself but found that she couldn't, deep breaths in and even longer breaths out did absolutely nothing to calm her rattling nerves.

Crowley, who always one to live by the phrase, ' _the show must go on',_ Cassie would discover, began to cheer, making his way back down towards the stage, sounding as triumphant and jubilant as Castielle thought was physically possible for one to pretend to be. Despite it all, she had to admit, the man did his job well.

The crowd were not as cynical as Castielle, apparently; and while she frowned at the bearded, dark-haired man hopping up on stage with a surprisingly nimble foot, they all began to cheer, apparently believing the implication of Crowley's easy, subtle lie: that this disaster was all part of Deanna's act, the hair-raising finale of it all. Crowley seemed to sigh in relief, his body shifting, expression loosening from the fixed, mechanical grin it had been, as the crowd began to clap for his star performer.

"Deanna!" The shouted. " _Deanna, Deannna, Deanna!"_

The applause was deafening.

Crowley began to chant with the audience.

"Deanna! Deanna! Deanna!"

Backstage, one of Crowley's Diamond Dogs, Lilith, saw Victor carrying in the limp body of Deanna through the changing rooms. She glanced down at Deanna's blanched face, lips parted, as The Sparkling Diamond hardly appeared to be breathing at all.

"Don't know if that Duke's gonna get his money's worth tonight." She drawled smugly to another one of the girls, Bela.

"Don't be unkind, Lil." The girl frowned. When Cassie would be introduced to her, she would come to learn that the girl was from London, also, upon asking Bela about her familiar accent.

She would also come to learn that Bela had lived in Kensington, right next to the Palace Gardens, and that her family had been disgustingly, wonderfully rich, but very cruel. Her eyes had darkened when Cassie asked how she had ended up at the Moulin Rouge.

"My father was not a good man," She had started slowly, avoiding Castielle's gaze. "And neither was my mother, for all the good me begging her to take me away from her husband did me. I ran away, I reasoned that squalor was better than the particular misery and terror that I lived in, at that time, and I was right, I think. I lived in Southwark for a bit, on the streets, before a businessman, Azazel, offered to take me far away. I said yes. He took me here."

Few who worked in the Moulin Rouge entered it by choice, Castielle would come to learn.

Now, Bela and Lilith went back out to dance, Bela stealing a concerned glance back at the limp body of Deanna, still in Victor's arms, before following Lilith out and onto the stage. Lilith didn't look back.

Victor went to lie Deanna out on a bed. People hurried over to help, to gawk, to worry.

"She fainted," A woman, Jody, seemed utterly taken aback, though she pretended to be calm, pushing back Deanna's hair tenderly. "Just fainted."

Her shaking voice betrayed her.

Back on stage, Crowley was continuing in his riling up the audience into a state of pure ecstasy. Castielle would come to learn that it was through these universally high spirits among the crowd-members that the most profitable nights occurred; when hundreds of men in a herd mentality began throwing money at dancing women with gay abandon, began requesting an audience with them with no concern for price.

The crowd was still chanting Deanna's name; Cassie noticed the concerned look, thinly veiled, in Crowley's eye as he shouted out to them:

"You've frightened her away!" He pulled a sad face as the crowd groaned and " _awhed",_ but Crowley kept his cool. "But I can see some lonely Moulin Rouge dancers looking for a partner or two!" He exclaimed. "So if you can Hunka-Hunk, you can Hunkadola with them!"

Music started up again. The crowd began to cheer again, the Hunkadola began. Cassie thought of how easily swayed these men's moods seemed.

"All together, now!" The bandleader cried out.

The dancing and beauty and chaos resumed.

Back behind stage, Deanna still lay unconscious on the tiny bed Victor had laid her out on.

Another woman, older, but still very pretty, Ellen, came in.

"Out of my way," She shoved past the crowd gaping at Deanna's helpless form. "Quickly." Panic and concern were evident in her voice. She knelt down beside the beautiful figure of Deanna, waving smelling-salts beneath her nose.

Deanna woke up and began gasping, then panting desperately.

"Oh, Ellen," Deanna feigned a smile, her voice weak as she shook her head limply, expression self-deprecating. "These silly costumes—they'll be the death of me, I'm sure of it—"

"Just a fainting spell," Ellen swallowed, unconvinced by her own words as she rubbed Deanna's back softly, giving her a drink of something dark that made eyes water just by sniffing it.

"All right, you girls," The manager, Guy, turned around and swatted at those surrounding Deanna, "get back out in front and make those gents thirsty." None of the dancers, staring, terrified at Deanna, moved for a moment. Guy glared at them. They caught the look, one by one, and scurried back out. "Problems?" He asked, turning back around and looking at Ellen, still tending to Deanna.

"Nothing for you to be worrying about," Ellen bit back on the venom in her voice, but it was still evident.

"Don't just stand around, then," Guy rolled his eyes, apparently choosing not to rise. He gestured to Vic to leave and get on with his act, which was up next. Deanna was still panting and coughing. Ellen held a tissue to Deanna's mouth so that she could cough into it; the older woman looked down at it in horror as bloody spots appeared on the cloth.

She glanced up and saw Vic standing at the door, unbeknownst to Guy, expression grim and sorrowful.


	7. The Hitch

"Find Crowley," Alastair mumbled in the direction of his bodyguard, Jackson, after the performance. "The girl's waiting for me."

In Deanna's dressing room, Ellen fastened The Sparkling Diamond's dress, Deanna groaning at the pain of it.

"The twinkle-toes investor has really taken the bait, De," She beamed, fixing up Deanna's hair. "I guess it's true what they say about nobility being stupid—probably because they all marry their cousins." Deanna faked a snort, worried about the night ahead of her. "With a patron like that, you could be the next Sarah Bernhardt."

Deanna turned to face Ellen, her expression soft and vulnerable.

"Do you really think I could be like the great _Sarah?"_

"Why not?" Ellen smiled warmly at Deanna. "You've got the talent. You hook that aristocratic, pampered investor, and you'll be lighting up the great stages of Europe."

"I'm gonna be a real actress, Ellen." Deanna beamed at the thought. "A great actress. I'm gonna fly away from here."

Her voice cracked and betrayed the emotion and longing behind her words.

Crowley entered.

"Duckling, is everything alright?" He frowned at the tears in Deanna's eyes.

"Oh," Deanna wiped her face, shaking her head. "Yes." She nodded quickly. "Of course, Crowley."

Her laugh was unconvincing, but Crowley didn't seem to care.

"Oh, thank goodness," He said distractedly. "You certainly weaved your magic on the dance floor; I'm fairly sure that a certain someone was left utterly enchanted in spite of their cool exterior, would you have thought it possible."

Deanna faked a smile at the compliment.

"How do I look?" She asked, turning in her red dress. Crowley faked a gasp, deliberately theatrical, and Deanna's laugh in response to this was, at least, genuine. "Smouldering temptress." She reminded.

"Oh, my desert flower," Crowley grinned, gesturing for Deanna to turn again. She did, Ellen watching Crowley with an untrusting eye as he appraised Deanna slowly. "How could _anyone_ possibly resist from gobbling you up?" Deanna laughed again. "Everything's going so well!"

…

Castielle stood, waiting, in the Elephant Red Room. It was right at the top of the enormous, beautiful, absurd elephant that stood in the courtyard of the Moulin Rouge, and in which Deanna slept, ate, and entertained.

Gabrielle stood below the elephant, looking up. Cassie peered nervously over the balcony to catch her eye, trying to communicate to the actress that she was _absolutely terrified_ and had _no idea_ of what it was that she was doing.

"Unbelievable!" Gabrielle shouted up at Cassie. "Straight to the Elephant! She must have _loved_ you!"

Cassie pulled a worried expression down, but was fairly certain that Gabrielle wouldn't be able to make it out.

The sound of the door opening and closing from behind her made Cassie jump, and she turned around quickly to see Deanna, wearing a black peignoir, walking slowly into the room, eyes smouldering. Cassie's pulse quickened. Her breath caught in her throat.

"Now, this _is_ a wonderful place for a poetry reading," Deanna stated, voice low and soft. Cassie bit her lip, terrified, and entered back into the room from the balcony outside. "Don't you think? Hmm?" She asked. Cassie found she could not answer, her throat had dried all but completely in the moments Deanna had been present. "Poetic enough for you?" Deanna asked. Her smile was the most beautiful thing Cassie thought she had ever seen.

"Yes," She managed to gasp out.

Unbeknownst to either Deanna or Castielle, but at that moment, Gabrielle and the other bohemians were climbing up the back of the elephant to gain a greater view—despite Aaron's nervous words of caution—and all but Aaron were giggling as they went.

Deanna walked over to a small, dark, circular table full of food.

"A little, uh, supper?" She asked. "Maybe some champagne?"

Castielle was too terrified about reciting her poetry to be able to eat—it would, most likely, come out of her just as quickly as it went in, and she _really_ didn't like the idea of being sick on a woman quite so beautiful as Deanna.

"I'd rather just, um, get it over and done with." She blushed, petrified of what the Sparkling Diamond would make of her writing.

Deanna set down the champagne with such a force that it crashed into the ice bucket.

"Oh," She said simply—Cassie frowned at her tone, it sounded put-out, or uncomfortable, or disappointed, or perhaps all three. But when the girl turned around it was like a veil had slid over her face, it _seemed_ contented, calm enough—but something flickered below the surface. "Very well, then." She said, eyes smouldering at Castielle. "Why don't you…" She lay down on the bed, "come down here?" She suggested. "Let's 'get it over and done with'." She said—and was that _mirth_ lacing her tone?

"I—I prefer to do it standing," Cassie said, having to look down, because something was stirring deep and low inside of her at the sight of Deanna's smooth, soft thighs underneath the thin midnight lace of her peignoir.

Deanna looked up at her, surprised and confused—but she quickly recovered.

"Oh," She started to get up. "How—"

"You don't have to stand," Castielle amended quickly, shaking her head. "I mean, it's quite long and I'd like you to be comfortable…"

Deanna looked at her, surprised, again.

"It's quite modern what I do," Cassie continued, finding it _impossible_ to make eye contact with the beautiful girl lying across a bed— _why_ was she lying across a bed for a poetry reading?!—"And it may feel a little strange at first, but I think if you're open to it, then you might enjoy it." Castielle smiled nervously at Deanna.

Deanna didn't seem to have recovered from her earlier surprise.

"I'm sure I will," She frowned, then smiled at Castielle. "It's Paris, by the way," She laughed, catching Cassie's nervousness. "And Montmartre at that. I've entertained women here before, and they've entertained me, so you needn't look so worried. Sometimes I quite like it, at least more than I do men."

"You do?" Castielle asked, reassured. Deanna laughed softly and nodded. "I find that men's poetry can be tedious as well—often so introspective and self indulgent—"

Deanna burst out laughing.

"God, yes, that's one way of putting it." She shook her head wistfully. "Men's… poetry," She winked at Cassie as she said this, but Castielle was utterly lost as to why, " _does_ tend to be a little one-party focussed."

Castielle nodded, and smiled, attempted to mask her fear as best as possible.

"So, should I just…?" She trailed off, looking nervously up at Deanna.

"Go ahead," The other girl smoldered. She lifted some of the lace covering her legs, revealing the smooth, soft skin underneath it, and Cassie had to turn away, heat flaring up inside of her.

"Excuse me," She shook her head, petrified. She turned her back to Deanna and began to pace, mind blank—all she could see was _Deanna,_ in her mind's eye, stretched out on that bed, looking up at her through thick, dark lashes with the most gorgeous pair of green eyes Castielle was convinced had ever, and would ever, exist.

Poetry, that's what Cassie had come to recite, _poetry,_ she reminded herself—but none came. What was she doing? What could she say?

"The—" She stammered out. "The sky is, is—"

Nothing. Also completely awful, but mainly just nothing.

Deanna seemed to like it, however—she had lain back on the bed and was moaning, the sound made Cassie wanted to close her eyes, heat pooling low in her stomach. What was this feeling? She'd never—

Oh, God.

"—With bluebirds—" Castielle tried to recover herself, but it was to no avail—she had turned back around to face Deanna, and she closed her eyes, head tipped back on the bed, moaning and breathing deep. Cassie spun on her heel to look away again, unable to contain herself at the sight of Deanna, so beautiful and soft and perfect on the bed. What was she doing? Did she react to _all_ poetry this way?

 _Come on, Castielle,_ she said to herself. _Come on_ —this was a poetry reading, and now was _not_ the time to get distracted. Gabrielle, Aaron, Garth, all the bohemians were relying on her. Her _friends—_ the first she had made in Paris. And possibly the last, considering the fact that Cassie was pretty sure she was about to _die_ from embarrassment, and… whatever this new feeling was, when she looked at and listened to Deanna, stretched out across the bed.

She took a deep breath. Deeper than was probably necessary. Turned to face Deanna again. The girl continued moaning on the bed.

"I think—think there might be some shaking… Oh, riki-tiki-tiki-tiki…" Cassie tried, but it was useless. It was awful. It was the worst thing Cassie's brain had ever concocted, and as it stood, she'd committed some serious literature blunders in her time.

Deanna grew impatient. She stopped moaning and sat on the edge of the bed.

"Um," She frowned softly, "is everything alright?"

"I'm… I'm a little nervous," Cassie confessed in a short, self-deprecating breath of laughter. "It's just, sometimes, it takes a little while for—"

"Oh!" Deanna exclaimed. Relief flooded Castielle—perhaps the other girl understood?

"You know," Castielle sighed, "inspiration to come."

Deanna got up, off the bed, and walked towards the writer.

"Oh, yes, yes, yes," She soothed. "I understand completely. Let Mummy help, hmm?"

First, her hand was on Castielle's arm, sending fireworks shooting along her skin; but before she could think, Deanna was trailing her fingers down, down, down the black dress Castielle wore, until they reached—

Castielle gasped. Warmth flooded her abdomen.

"Does that inspire you?" Deanna asked, whispering the words into Cassie's ear as she leant in close. Her voice somehow managed to be both breathy with seduction and gorgeously innocent, and it was intoxicating for Castielle to listen to.

Before she had another moment to recover, Deanna had thrown Castielle onto the bed.

"Let's make love." She said, voice filled with sex and beauty.

Castielle blanched.

"Make love?" She repeated.

"You want to, don't you?" Deanna clambered on top of Castielle, legs either side of the writer's body.

"Well, I came to—"

"No, tell the truth," Deanna shook her head, leaning down low to whisper the words in Cassie's ear. She shivered, heat filling her insides. "Can't you feel the poetry?" Deanna asked. Her fingertips began to play down Cassie's shoulders. Castielle could hardly breathe.

"What?"

The bohemians, outside, were now on top of the Elephant, lowering Gabrielle down so that she could spy on the pair inside.

"Oh, come on," Deanna smiled knowingly, " _feel it."_

She rubbed her hips down onto Castielle from where she sat, on top of her, teasing Cassie through her dress. Castielle whimpered beneath her, closing her eyes and raising her hips up, off the bed, to meet Deanna's. Wasn't this wrong? Was it? It was Paris, as Deanna had said, and the eve of a new millennium… But Castielle had come to read poetry, not make love—and certainly not make love to a _woman—_ what would her father say? What would her stern, devout, _mother_ say?

"Free the tigress!" Deanna exclaimed from on top of Castielle, grinding down on Cassie.

"Oh!" Castielle exclaimed. She could hardly think, could hardly speak, what was she doing here? What was she _about_ to do?

Deanna pretended to growl as she lifted the skirt of Cassie's dress, then hoisted Cassie into sitting up, tugging at the fastenings on Castielle's back until they fell slack, until the dress slipped down and her chest was left uncovered. Her heart was racing.

"Yes," Deanna beamed, "I need your poetry _now!"_ She exclaimed, raising her voice to a shout.

"Alright!" Castielle exclaimed, struggling to get out from under Deanna, who gasped as Castielle fell off the bed, hoisting her dress back up to cover herself and fumbling with its ties to at least make it secure, once again, if not closely fitting.

She stumbled into standing, Deanna sat back up on the bed, frowning in lost confusion at her. Why did she look hurt? Had Castielle somehow offended her? She thought Deanna had been trying to inspire her? There had been a great many great poems written about sex, after all, and Castielle after _that,_ felt—well, she'd rather not think about it. Heat crept down her neck.

"It's a little bit funny," She started, breathless.

"What?" Deanna asked, still utterly bewildered.

"This—feeling in, inside." Castielle decided. She could still hardly think, but an odd kind of clarity had entered her mind, like she'd found a muse. _Her_ muse. "I'm not one of those who can—who can easily hide." She turned back to Deanna nervously. "Is this… Is this okay? Is this what you want?"

Deanna considered Castielle for a moment, before a light seemed to flicker on inside her brain.

"Oh," She said, standing. " _Poetry._ Yes, _yes._ Yes, this is what I want. Naughty _words."_ She giggled, and so did Castielle, settling somewhat, but still a little lost. "Oh!" Deanna exclaimed, falling back onto the bed. "Naughty words!" She began to roll on it, and Cassie stared at her, shocked. What was she doing _now?!_

"I—I don't have much money," Cassie tried, voice trembling with something new. "But, oh, if I did—"

"Oh, yes!" Deanna exclaimed, trailing her fingers up her legs.

"I—I'd buy a big house, where we both could live." Uncertainty fluttered through her, as did horror at whatever it was Deanna was doing. Were all dancers at the Moulin Rouge this strange, she wondered?

"Oh, I love them, naughty words!" Deanna moaned. "Oh, it's so good!"

Well, at least she seemed to be enjoying the poetry, at any rate.

"If I were a sculptor—" Castielle tried, but that didn't sound right, no matter how much Deanna pretended to like it.

"Wonderful, wonderful!" She exclaimed. Perhaps she was only trying to calm Cassie down, the writer wondered to herself? If she was, it was certainly working in some ways, but _definitely_ not in others.

"—But then again, no." Castielle shook her head. "Or a girl who makes potions at a travelling show—" She decided, glancing over to Deanna, who had started rolling on the bed again, crying out,

"Oh, don't! Don't!"

Castielle stopped abruptly, standing still, terrified again.

"No, no, no," Deanna stopped rolling, lying on her front and looking up at Castielle. "Don't stop."

"I know it's not much," Castielle resumed, distractedly.

"Give me more!" Deanna shouted. "Yes! Yes! Yes! Oh!"

"But it's the best I can do," Cassie took a deep, hesitant breath.

"Oh, naughty!" Deanna cried out. "Don't stop! Never! Yes, yes, oh!"

Castielle was finally lost for words. Deanna was still rolling—was it an attempt to be erotic? If so, it really wasn't working—at least not anymore. How could a _courtesan_ fail to be erotic? And why was this one _trying_ to be erotic at a _poetry reading_?!

Cassie was bewildered. So she put her words to music.

Maybe it would stop Deanna's shouting. It was awfully difficult to concentrate with it, after all.

"My gift is my song," She turned to face Deanna, breathing deep. The dancer's face had gone still, she stared up at Cassie, now, seeming as lost as Castielle had felt moments earlier. "And, this one's for you."

Deanna's mouth hung open. If Castielle didn't know any better, she'd say the actress looked amazed. As it was, she was probably still just frustrated that it had taken so long for Castielle to be able to recite anything good.

"And you can tell everybody that this is your song," Castielle continued. Despite her strangeness, something about the Sparkling Diamond stirred something deep and tender in Cassie's soul. Looking at her, the next lines of her poem—or rather, song, as it was becoming—came so easily it hardly seemed real. "It may be quite simple, but, now that it's done—I hope you don't mind, I hope you don't mind, that I put down in words…" She stepped back towards the bed, towards Deanna, who was sitting up again, gazing intently at Castielle, mouth still open. "How wonderful life is, now you're in the world."

Silence.

Deanna gaped at her. Something like sunlight and a hurricane was stirring inside Cassie's chest.

So she did what _all_ writers would do. She put it into words.

"Sat on the roof, and I kicked off the moss…" She laughed softly, turning her back to Deanna again. "Well, some of these verses," She heard Deanna stand behind her, "they got me quite cross…" She turned to face Deanna again. "But the sun's been kind while I wrote this song, it's for people like you, that keep it turned on."

Deanna burst out giggling, and it was like music to Castielle. She could have cried.

Deanna stepped close. This time, Cassie didn't turn away.

"So excuse me forgetting, but these things I do," She breathed deep, "You see, I've forgotten if they're green or they're blue—anyway the thing is, what I really mean—yours are the sweetest eyes that I've ever seen." Deanna burst out into giggles again, looking down, blushing furiously—the courtesan was _blushing?!_ It was the most beautiful sight Castielle had ever witnessed, she could only let out a hoarse laugh in response, thinking of how innocent and happy and pure and girlish Deanna's voice sounded, now. She took the other girl's hands and guided her into dancing softly, and then, somehow, their bodies ended up even closer together, the lights of Paris outside the window setting the world on fire.

It was magic. All of it was magic.

"And you can tell everybody that this is your song—it may be quite simple, but, now that it's done—" Deanna blushed and beamed in Castielle's arms. "I hope you don't mind, I hope you don't mind, that I put down in words," Their dancing slowed for a moment, "...How wonderful life is, now you're… in the world."

She beamed back at the look Deanna gave her, twirling the courtesan around, before the two ended up chest to chest, feet touching, foreheads touching, staring into each other's eyes. It seemed to last forever. It was perfect. Cassie wished she could have drunk that moment, consumed it, so that it lived, forever, within her.

"Oh," Deanna sighed, fingertips trailing softly through the hair at the back of Cassie's neck, "I can't believe it. I'm in love—with a young, beautiful, talented," Cassie couldn't help but beam at the girl's words, "Lady."

"Lady?"

"Is it Lady? Baroness?" Deanna raised her eyebrows, surprised again. " _Duchess?"_ She asked, stunned. "Not that the title's important, of course." She laughed, eyes crinkling at their corners.

"I'm not—" Castielle shook her head. "I'm not a member of _any_ peerage," She frowned.

"Not a noble?"

"No," Cassie frowned. "Where did you get _that_ idea?"

"But Crowley—" Deanna stammered, fingers falling out of Cassie's hair. "Not a noble?"

"No," Castielle shook her head. "Why did you—I—I'm a _writer."_

" _A writer?"_ Deanna repeated.

"Yes, a writer," Castielle confirmed, now slightly indignant.

"No!" Deanna exclaimed, taking a step back.

"Gabrielle said—"

"Gabrielle?!" Deanna repeated, clearly distressed. She raised her hands to cover her mouth in shock. "Oh, no. Oh, _fuck—_ you're not another of Gabe's oh-so-talented, charmingly bohemian, tragically impoverished proteges?!"

Castielle couldn't help but be at least somewhat flattered by the suggestion.

"You might say that, yes," She admitted, smiling smugly. Deanna seemed less pleased. She stared out the window in obvious horror.

"Oh no! I'm going to _kill_ her— _I'm going to kill her!"_

"There might be a small hitch," Gabrielle admitted from where she was peering down, spying on the couple inside the Elephant.

" _Gabe—"_ Aaron grumbled in a warning tone.

"What about the investor?" Deanna asked, panicked.

"The investor?" Cassie repeated.

" _Yes,_ the investor," Deanna hissed. "Who I mistook you for—or who you pretended to be or whatever the _fuck_ it was that got us into this mess—"

"So you thought _I_ was an investor of _noble blood?!"_

"It's no more ridiculous than _you_ thinking that I'd want to take you up to the Red Room in the _shitting_ Elephant of the Moulin Rouge just to listen to you read me some _fucking poetry!"_

"I'm new to Paris!" Cassie exclaimed. "I thought you were just—I don't know!" She grew panicked and frustrated. "I thought it was just cultural differences, or something!"

"Cultural differences?!" Deanna repeated, raising her voice. "What the fuck kind of an excuse is that?! And I'm _not_ French, anyway!—"

"Really?" Cassie asked, genuinely surprised. "Then where—"

"Kansas! America!" Deanna shouted, then ran a hand through her hair, moaning. "Not that it matters, anyway—more importantly, where and who _is_ the investor?"

Castielle ignored her question, still shocked and utterly lost.

"But why did you think _I_ was the investor?"

Deanna huffed out an exhausted breath, apparently exasperated at the fact that Castielle was failing to help her through this dilemma.

"Listen," She groaned through gritted teeth. "It wouldn't be the first time that Crowley asked me to sleep with some woman—"

"—Yes, you mentioned, actually—" Something bitter curled around Cassie's heart.

"It's just that _normally,"_ Deanna continued, quite forcefully, glaring at Castielle for her interruption, "those women actually have the money to _pay_ for the service I provide them."

"It's not my fault—"

"I'll give you this, though," Deanna seemed to be riling herself up, now, "I really quite liked you, when I thought you were some rich Dame who wanted to fuck me. I thought you were kind of nice, you know? And while you weren't the first woman I'd been forced to sleep with—"

"We _didn't sleep—"_ Cassie attempted to remind, but Deanna continued regardless, hardly seeming to notice.

"You definitely _were_ the youngest, and the prettiest—so it actually really _sucks_ that it turns out you lied about being rich, I guess—"

"I _didn't_ lie!" Cassie hissed, growing angry.

"But all of it begs the question," Deanna continued, "which is one that you have been of absolutely _no_ help in answering, by the way—" She gestured dismissively to Castielle, who bristled slightly and glared at the other girl, " _where is the investor?! And_ who—"

Castielle sighed. Her heart hurt, though she didn't know with what.

"Listen," She sat helplessly down on Deanna's bed, the courtesan's gaze flickering over to her with annoyance, "I'm the writer for Gabrielle's new show, Spectacular, Spectacular. She organised for me to come here tonight and persuade you to allow me on as the new writer—Becky's—well, I don't quite know where Becky's gone, actually. She's just, gone. But I'm… I'm sorry about the mix up. Gabrielle said something about there being a Duke in the booth next to ours, tonight, if that helps you—" Realisation dawned across Deanna's features, softening them, though Castielle could not think why, "—some rich, pampered, dick—" Deanna snorted reluctantly at Cassie's words. "—He's probably your investor," Cassie sighed, feeling despondent. "Your best bet, I suppose, is to go ask Crowley where he's got to…"

Deanna nodded distractedly and began to make her way to the door.

"...It can't be very far, if he was promised to be… _entertained_ by you, tonight…"

"A Duke?" She asked. Castielle sighed and nodded.

There was silence for a moment, then, from outside the room, Castielle and Deanna both heard Crowley's voice through the walls, and both of them felt their blood freeze.

"My dear Duke!" Exclaimed Crowley, voice muffled only slightly.

" _The Duke!"_ Deanna gasped.

"The Duke?" Cassie repeated, horrified.

"Hide!" Deanna hissed. "Out the back!"

She grabbed Cassie and hauled her to her feet, but Castielle, unused to wearing a dress, stumbled and tripped on her way, at the moment that Crowley opened the door to Deanna's room. Deanna, apparently just as quick-thinking as she was beautiful, raised the robe of her peignoir, hiding Castielle, who ducked behind Deanna's legs.

"My dear, are you decent for the Duke?" Crowley asked. Castielle couldn't see anything but lace and Deanna's beautiful, soft calves. "Where were you?" Crowley asked, and now, his voice masked annoyance at his most popular courtesan.

"Mm, I uh," Deanna moved carefully over to the refreshments table, allowing Castielle to shuffle behind it and hide better—she sighed in relief, but Deanna kicked her in a way that somehow said _Don't speak so soon, it's hardly over yet,_ and _shut the hell up._ "I was waiting." The courtesan finished, voice dripping sex the way it had when she'd been attempting to seduce Castielle. Something sad and bitter stirred inside the writer at the courtesan's using this voice to speak to someone _other_ than her.

"Dearest Duke," Crowley leered, voice somehow both rough and greasy, "allow me to introduce Mademoiselle Deanna—The Sparkling Diamond of the Moulin Rouge."

Deanna moved her hands softly across her legs, the motion intoxicating for Castielle, even from behind. She could only imagine how the Duke must have responded to it.

"Oh, Monsieur, how wonderful of you to take the time out of your busy schedule to visit…" She positively smoldered. Cassie could make out the disgusting smile that crept across Alastair's face as Deanna spoke. It made her shudder from where she crouched.

"The pleasure, I fear," The Duke, Alastair's voice was slick and nasal, and it made Castielle want to vomit, "will be entirely mine, my dear." Alastair leered.

"I'll leave you two squirrels to get better acquainted," Crowley grinned smugly. "Ta-ra."

The Duke leant down to kiss Deanna's hand just as Crowley closed the door.

"A kiss on the hand may be quite continental—"

"—But diamonds are a girl's best friend." Deanna finished, laughing, the sound rich and subtle and soft.

"Well, after tonight's pretty exertions on the stage, you must surely be in need of refreshment, my dear."

Alastair walked closer to the table behind which Castielle hid to get some champagne—panic flared through Castielle, but Deanna was quick.

"Don't!" She exclaimed. And then, at Alastair's stopping short and frowning at her, "You… just, love the view, hmm?" She gestured outside to the balcony, to the lights of Paris that lit up the world in reds and oranges and yellows and pinks.

"Charming," Alastair deadpanned, clearly unconvinced. He reached out for the champagne. Deanna squealed, then began to twirl herself around.

"Oh! Oh, I feel like dancing!" She took Alastair by the wrists and guided him away from the refreshments table, trilling. The Duke frowned, but seemed at least quite entertained.

"You see, I should like a glass of champagne," The Duke pulled himself free of Deanna's grip, Cassie ducking behind the table again.

"No!" Deanna exclaimed. The Duke turned to peer at Deanna, oddly. "It's—" Deanna tried. Apparently even she was stumped as to how she should continue at this point. "It's, a little bit funny…"

Alastair stared at Deanna, picking up the champagne from behind him.

"What is?" He asked.

"This…" Deanna glanced down at Castielle, panicked. Castielle knew what she had to do.

" _Feeling,"_ She mouthed silently at Deanna.

"Feeling…" Deanna said slowly, glancing back, worried, to Cassie.

" _Inside."_ Cassie mouthed and pointed to her chest.

"Inside." Deanna looked up at the Duke, beaming fakely.

" _I'm not one of those…"_ Castielle continued to mouth over to Deanna, who squinted to make out her words.

"I'm not one of those," She repeated, "who can easily… who can easily…" Castielle hid behind her hands, came out, mouthed the word hide, and repeated the gesture. "Hide!" Deanna exclaimed, looking back up to Alastair. Pride for Deanna flared through Castielle, and it was her downfall—in what felt like a victory called too early, she knocked over something behind her in a moment of thoughtless clumsiness, causing it to crash, and ducked lower behind the table as the Duke began to turn around.

"No!" Deanna exclaimed, darting over to Alastair, dragging his attention back to her. She knelt down and hugged his legs. "I don't have much money!—But oh, if I did… I'd—I'd buy a big house—where we both could live."

She peered round the Duke's legs a moment and pointed to the door, glaring at Castielle, indicating that she could leave through it. She looked back up to the Duke and exhaled deeply.

"I hope you don't mind," She began to sing, rising slowly. As she stood, Castielle did also, hidden behind the Duke's turned back. "I hope you don't mind," Deanna continued, voice softer than it had been when she was singing for her enormous, doting audience earlier in the night. "That I put down in words…" Her fingers traced the Duke's shoulders delicately, and she looked up at him for a moment—"How wonderful life is,"—but then her gaze flickered over to Castielle, stood petrified behind the Duke, attempting to make her way out, and a soft smile graced the courtesan's lips as her green eyes softened, became more honest, "now you're in the world." She finished, staring at the writer, not the Duke. Cassie forgot how to breathe. Deanna's gaze returned up to Alastair.

"That's very beautiful…" The Duke said quietly. Cassie walked silently over to the door, getting ready to open it.

"It's from Spectacular, Spectacular," Deanna explained matter-of-factly. "Suddenly, with you here, I finally understood the true meaning." She put her arms around the Duke's neck and pointed Castielle to the door, apparently growing frustrated again. "Of those words—'How wonderful life is now you're in the world'." She finished, beaming prettily up at the Duke, who smirked sickeningly down at her.

Cassie opened the door to leave, but behind it saw Jackson, Alastair's manservant and bodyguard, back turned to Castielle, facing out to the corridor.

"What meaning is that, my dear?" Alastair asked.

Cassie closed the door, and cringed at the noise it made. Deanna, trying to distract the Duke from it, threw herself down upon her bed and cried out, slamming her fists onto it as she did so.

"No, no!" She exclaimed. "Duke!" She pointed accusingly at Alastair, who seemed taken aback once again, "don't you toy with me—You, you _must_ know the effect you have on women."

If Castielle didn't know any better, she'd have said that Deanna was quite enjoying this.

Deanna grabbed the Duke and began to pull him onto the bed.

"Let's make love!" She exclaimed. Cassie hid behind a curtain. "You want to make love, don't you?"

"Make love?" Alastair repeated.

"Mm," Deanna moaned, kissing him, eyes open, glaring at Cassie, gesturing for her to escape out the back of the room. Castielle darted to the balcony. "I knew you felt the same way!" Deanna theatrically cried out, moaning again, Alastair on top of her. "Oh! Oh, Duke!"

Cassie stopped short of the open balcony doors, her heart breaking, staring pleadingly at Deanna.

" _Get out of here or he'll kill you!"_ Deanna mouthed furiously at Castielle, as Alastair began to plant kisses down her neck. Castielle flushed, eyes stinging. Deanna seemed to soften. She pulled Alastair back. "Yes, yes—you're quite right," She shook her head. The Duke frowned, confused. "We should wait 'til opening night."

She pulled a face at Castielle, one that seemed to say, _are you happy now?_ And waved the young writer off. Cassie nodded at her, pleased, and stepped out onto the balcony and the cold Parisian night air, to hide.

"Wait?" Alastair repeated, frowning.

"Yes," Deanna nodded, pushing him back and sitting up. "There's a power in you that scares me," She breathed deeply. "You should go."

"I just _got_ here." Alastair glared.

"Yes, but we'll see each other every day during rehearsal." Deanna stood, pushing at the Duke again. "We—we must wait. Yes, we _must_ wait until opening night. Get out."

She pushed the Duke out the room and shut the door, slumping against it.

Her breathing turned shallow, and Castielle crept back into the room, out of hiding.

"Do you—" She gasped, "Do you have any— _any_ idea what would have happened if you were found—"

She gasped again, staggering over to her bed, but didn't quite manage to reach it. Castielle made her way over just in time; Deanna fainted and fell, and Cassie was _only just_ able to catch her.

"Oh!" Castielle exclaimed. "Oh, my G— _Deanna!"_ She began to shake the other girl, trying to wake her. Cassie's eyes darted around the room for a place to put Deanna. "Right, the bed," She shook her head, infuriated by her own slowness. "I'll put her on the bed." She looked down at Deanna. "I'll put you on the bed."

The writer dragged the courtesan to the bed and fell on top of her as she dropped her on it, exhausted. As bad luck would have it, this was the moment that Alastair chose to re-enter, just as Deanna stirred, coming to.

"I forgot my hat," Alastair explained distractedly, then upon seeing Cassie lying on top of Deanna, his face fell. "Foul play?" He frowned. Danger filled the room. Murder filled his voice.

"She—" Cassie stammered, trying to get up—almost impossible in her long, black dress.

"Oh, Duke," Deanna started, voice faint.

"It's a little bit funny," Alastair's voice was oddly dangerous as he stepped further into the room, "this feeling inside?"

"Beautifully spoken, Duke," Deanna replied airily, helping Cassie off her, then sitting up, herself. "Yes, let me introduce you. The writer." She gestured to Castielle.

Alastair was unconvinced.

"The _writer?"_ He repeated, snarling his words out.

"Yes," Deanna confirmed. "We were rehearsing."

Alastair let out a horribly sarcastic, nasal laugh, eyes alight with death.

"You expect me to believe that scantily clad, in the arms of another man, in the middle of the night, inside an elephant in the _Moulin Rouge_ , you were rehearsing?!"

In the first genuine stroke of luck of the night, the bohemians, who had been watching the whole scene from their hiding spot, entered the room just in time.

"How's the rehearsal going?" Gabrielle asked, waltzing in, in her usual confident, humorous air. "Shall we take it from the top, eh, my queen?" She asked, winking at Deanna, who hardly concealed her amused smirk and rolled her eyes.

"I hope the piano's in tune…" Aaron said nervously, sitting at the piano in Deanna's room, decorated with red silks and laces.

"Sorry," The Argentinean explained to the Duke, "we got held up."

"Can I offer you a drink?" Garth asked, holding up a greenish bottle.

"When I spoke those words to you before," Deanna started, walking slowly towards the Duke, "you—you filled me with such _inspiration._ Yes, I realised how much work we had to do, so called everyone for an emergency rehearsal."

"If you're rehearsing," Alastair snarled, walking uncomfortably close to Deanna, so that his chest was pressed threateningly to hers, "then where's _Crowley?"_

"Oh—" Deanna started, eyes flickering over to Castielle in panic. But Cassie had nothing to offer her by way of help, she was just as lost as the young courtesan. "Well—we didn't want to bother—"

Crowley peered into the room, having heard the commotion from inside and thought the worst.

"What the—" He frowned, then recovered himself. "—My dear Duke," He entered the room, "I'm _most terribly_ sorry—"

Deanna nearly jumped out of her skin, rushing over to Crowley and away from the threatening figure of Alastair. "Crowley, you _made_ it," She beamed, and Cassie knew it was with relief. "It's alright, the Duke knows all about the _emergency rehearsal."_

She gave Crowley a hard, meaningful look.

"Emergency rehearsal?" Crowley repeated, nonplussed.

"Mhmm," Deanna nodded, "to incorporate the Duke's artistic ideas. Hmm?"

She raised her eyebrows pointedly at Crowley.

"I'm sure Becky will be only _too_ delighted—"

"Becky's left." Gabriel grinned.

"Becky's _what?!"_

"Crowley, the cat's out of the bag," Deanna flung her arms up into the air. "Yes, the Duke's already a big fan of our new writer's work. That's why he's so keen to _invest."_ She gave him another meaningful look.

"Invest?" Crowley repeated. Money seemed to glint behind his eyes, and he grinned. "Invest!" He exclaimed. "Oh, well, yes, invest! You can hardly blame me for trying to hide, uh—" He frowned over to Castielle. She mouthed her name at him, whispering it hoarsely. "Young Castielle away." He smiled fakely over to Alastair again.

"I'm way ahead of you, Crowley," Alastair rolled his eyes. "Enough is—"

"My dear Duke, why don't you and I go to my office to peruse the paperwork?" Crowley suggested.

"What's the story?" Alastair asked coolly.

"The story?" Crowley repeated, mind drawing an obvious blank.

"Well, if I'm to invest, I'll need to know the story." The Duke deadpanned.

"Ah, yes." Crowley fumbled. "Well, the story's about—Gabrielle?" He looked desperately over to the little actress, who laughed nervously.

"Well, the story—the story's about—well, it's all about—"

"It's about love." Castielle said quickly. Alastair turned to face the writer, loathing scrawled across his features.

"Love?" He repeated, unamused.

"It's about love overcoming all obstacles." Castielle said, voice braver than she felt.

She looked over to Deanna, who looked back at her. Now, he knees felt weak for a whole new reason.

"And it's set in Switzerland!" Gabrielle exclaimed excitedly. Castielle cringed.

"Switzerland?" Alastair repeated, apparently unimpressed.

"Exotic Switzerland!" Crowley grinned, the look unconvincing. Alastair didn't seem to buy it. He rolled his eyes again.

Cassie caught sight of an elephant statue in the room, and got a sudden idea.

"India." She said. The group turned to look at her. "India!" She exclaimed. "It's set in India!" She looked over to Deanna. "And there's a courtesan. The most beautiful courtesan in all the world." Then she looked at the Duke, walking towards him as she spoke, all her fear quite forgotten. "But her kingdom's invaded by an evil maharajah!" Gabrielle gasped theatrically behind her. Deanna giggled. "Now, in order to save her kingdom," Castielle continued, ignoring her friends, "she has to seduce the evil maharajah. But on the night of the seduction, she mistakes a penniless—a penniless—" She spotted a sitar sat next to the piano, "—a penniless sitar player for the evil maharajah, and she falls in love with her." Cassie swallowed. " _Him_." She corrected. "Falls in love with him." She gave Deanna a meaningful look. Deanna's gaze had turned soft.

"The sitar player… wasn't trying to trick the courtesan, or anything," She gave Deanna an apologetic look before she turned and looked at the others, "...But he was dressed as a maharajah because he was appearing in a play."

The Argentinian picked up the sitar resting beside the piano.

"I will play the penniless, dancing sitar player." He declared. "He will sing like an angel, but dance like the devil."

Alastair still seemed unconvinced.

"And what happens next?" He asked.

"Well," Cassie took a steadying breath, "The penniless sitar player and the courtesan, they have to hide their love from the evil maharajah."

Aaron's nerves seemed to have calmed.

"The penniless sitar player's sitar is magical," He explained. "It can only speak the truth."

"And I—I will play the magical sitar." Gabrielle grinned, snatching the sitar off the Argentinian She plucked the strings of the sitar. "You are beautiful," She beamed at Deanna, playing the instrument. "You are ugly," She frowned at Crowley, before turning to the Duke, glaring, "And you are—"

Crowley slapped his hand over Gabrielle's mouth.

"And she gives the game away, I suppose?" Alastair asked, looking up at the rest of the group.

"Yes!" Everyone exclaimed.

"Tell him about the cancan." Crowley frowned at Cassie, who groaned internally. _Of course_ Crowley wanted to make the play an opportunity to promote the sexuality of the Moulin Rouge.

"The—" She struggled for her words. "The tantric cancan—"

"It's an erotic spectacular scene that captures the thrusting, vibrant, violent, wild bohemian spirit that this whole production embodies, Duke." Crowley grinned at Alastair.

"What do you mean by that?" Alastair frowned.

"I mean that the show will be a magnificent, opulent, tremendous, stupendous, gargantuan, bedazzlement, a sensual ravishment. It will be…" Aaron played some notes on the piano as Crowley spoke. "Spectacular, Spectacular." He grinned.

Alastair sat on a chaise longue embroidered with gold and covered in silk.

"And why should I even consider investing?" He raised his eyebrows.

Crowley seemed to falter. Deanna caught him.

"It'll be the play to end all plays," She beamed. "Written by the most talented writer in all of Paris—no," She corrected herself, "in all of Europe," She beamed, gesturing to Castielle. Cassie flushed and looked down. "Anyone even _associated_ with it will be considered a god, if not in the literary world, at least in the bohemian one—and it's growing, dear Duke, the world is caught up in the bohemian revolution and everyone who's _anyone_ wants to be involved. We're offering you that opportunity—how could you turn it down?" As Deanna spoke, Alastair fixed her with a hungry look that made Castielle's skin crawl, and not just with jealousy. "Returns are fixed at—" She glanced at Crowley for his involvement.

"Eight—" Alastair looked unimpressed as Crowley spoke, "—no, ten percent." He corrected himself, smiling charmingly.

"You must agree that's excellent," Deanna nodded enthusiastically.

"And on top of all of that," Crowley said slowly, obviously noticing that the Duke was not yet won over, "on top of fame and recognition as a gentlemen invested in art and culture, on top of your fee, you—" He seemed a little lost again.

"You can be involved artistically!" Castielle exclaimed. Alastair looked up at her. She didn't know what it was she saw in those cold, still, grey eyes.

"The audience will stomp and cheer!" Gabrielle beamed. "How exciting!"

"It'll run for fifty years," Garth nodded sagely.

"It'll be a delight," Deanna seemed to be growing excited, she bounced on the balls of her feet and grinned with some kind of invulnerable happiness.

"Fifty years!" Gabrielle exclaimed. "Imagine, Duke!"

Alastair seemed to be swayed.

"Not only a sound investment," Crowley said slowly, "but a romantic one. _Think_ of how people will view the English Duke who funded the Parisian show that changed the world—who funded the show that the world _fell in love with…"_

"Ten percent?" Alastair repeated.

"Ten percent." Crowley nodded.

"How do I know it'll be any good?"

Castielle stared at the Duke. That he had sat down to listen to their proposal said enough, anyway—he was interested in the play, even if he said he wasn't—but she sensed that this was a game she must play carefully—she wasn't in the world of writing about freedom, beauty, truth and love, anymore. This was business. This was the cold, unfeeling, beating heart of everything she hated, everything she had run away from in London, the life she had abandoned in favour of this earnest, raw one in Montmartre. She remembered everything her father had said and done when making business deals. She knew she had to impress the Duke.

Luckily, Gabrielle seemed to have the same idea.

"It'll feature elephants," She beamed, "Arabians, Indians—"

"And courtesans." Deanna positively glowed at the idea of a courtesan being the _protagonist_ of a story.

"It'll embody everything the expanding world loves!" Gabrielle exclaimed. "It'll show the world in all its colours and beauty!"

"What else?" Alastair was stubborn. "What else would it feature?"

"Acrobats?" Aaron suggested. "Juggling bears? Beautiful girls?"

"Fire eaters!" The Argentinian grew excited. "Muscle men! Contortionists!"

"It sounds like a day at the circus." Alastair rolled his eyes.

"Intrigue," Castielle said quickly, "and danger!"

" _And romance!"_ Both Deanna and Castielle said, together. Their gaze met a moment. Castielle's heart stopped beating. A smile flickered at Deanna's features.

"Electric lights," Gabrielle seemed to be getting carried away. "Machinery—and all that electricity—so exciting!" She said again.

"But fifty years?" Alastair raised his eyebrows. "You seemed to be overselling it. No offense."

Castielle sensed that he meant this very much offensively.

"You've heard Castielle's writing," Deanna said firmly, replying just as quickly as Castielle thought it possible to. "You _must_ know that it's true."

Alastair seemed a little more persuaded.

"Think of the cheers," Gabrielle said softly. Her voice sounded almost wicked. "Think of the return on ten percent on a play that runs for _fifty years."_

"Yes, I suppose," Alastair conceded, "but what happens at the end?"

Everyone seemed at a loss. The bubbling enthusiasm that had entered the group during their pitch left as quickly as it had entered. All eyes turned to Castielle.

She looked at each of them, meeting Deanna's green, warm gaze, last. The girl seemed to be _pleading_ with her to think of something. How could Castielle deny her?

"Um—" She started, uncertain. Her voice tore a little in her throat.

"The courtesan and sitar— _man,"_ She caught herself just in time, "are pulled apart… by an evil plan." Deanna beamed at Cassie as she spoke. Warmth flooded through the writer's system, as did courage—real, steady, immovable courage like Castielle had never known before. "But in the end, she hears his song…"

Deanna continued to gaze at Castielle. If the writer didn't know any better, she'd have said that the courtesan looked enchanted by her—but that couldn't be it, could it?

"And?" Alastair asked, clearly growing impatient. Castielle was more than slightly put off by the fact that he seemed determined to find a flaw in the group's so far immaculate lie, and call them out on it.

"And… And their love is just too strong," Castielle decided. Deanna looked at Cassie. Everything was quiet for a minute.

Alastair stared at Deanna.

"It's a little bit funny," He sang softly. The sound paired with the look he gave the courtesan made Cassie want to vomit. "This feeling inside…"

Gabrielle recovered the horrified silence that followed.

"Fifty years!" She exclaimed. "Just think!"

"The sitar player's secret song," Cassie continued taking a deep breath, "helps them flee from the evil one, and though the tyrant rants and rails—"

Alastair's eyes flicked over to her again. Her skin prickled. How could Deanna have even stood the _thought_ of sleeping with the man? Hatred and sadism lay in his eyes, Castielle could _see_ it—there was no love there, nothing. No kindness, no softness. Not the warm, endeared amusement that lay behind Gabrielle's sarcastic and mischievous exterior that Castielle could see in the actress's interactions with those around her, not the empathy and understanding that was so clear in Garth's eyes, not the patience or honesty with which Aaron seemed to interact with the world, not the passion and courage and love Castielle saw when she looked at Deanna. None of it.

"It's all to no avail." She finished, steadying herself.

"Rants and rails?" Deanna repeated, turning to Crowley. "Oh, Crowley," She grinned, "no one could play him like you could!"

"No one's going to." Crowley said matter-of-factly, an extremely subtle smile twitching at his lips. Gabrielle snorted out a laugh.

"What do you say, Alastair?" Deanna turned to the Duke, beaming a winning smile at him. He stared back at Deanna for what felt like an age, saying nothing. The he sat back, his eyes sweeping across the group.

Finally, he spoke.

"In the end, should someone die?"

Silence.

"So is that a yes?" Deanna asked, cautiously.

He was quiet again for a moment.

"Fifty years, you say?" He turned to Gabrielle, as though she was the authority on the matter. Naturally, the actress grinned at this, loving the idea.

"Fifty years." She repeated. "Come on, Duke."

Alastair smiled. It didn't put Castielle any more at ease.

"Generally," He said, after another pause, "I like it."

Gabrielle, Aaron and Garth began to cheer. Crowley seemed tempted to hug Alastair, but refrained enough to extend his arm and offer him a simple handshake. Deanna and Castielle glanced at eachother again. Deanna beamed.

" _Thank you,"_ She mouthed. Castielle's heart soared.


End file.
